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BY THE SAME AUTHOR
FORDHAM UNIVERSITY PRESS SERIES
MAKERS OF MODERN MEDICINE
Lives of the men to whom nineteenth century medical science
owes most. Second Edition. New York, 1910. $2.00 net.
THE POPES AND SCIENCE
The story of Papal patronage of the sciences and especially
medicine. 45th thousand. New York, 1911. $2.00 net.
MAKERS OF ELECTRICITY
Lives of the men to whom important advances in electricity
are due. In collaboration with Brother Potamian, F.S.C.,
Sc.D. (London), Professor of Physics at Manhattan College.
New York, 1909. $2.00 net.
EDUCATION, HOW OLD THE NEW
Addresses in the history of education on various occasions.
3rd thousand. New York, 1911. $2.00 net.
OLD-TIME MAKERS OF MEDICINE
The story of the students and teachers of the sciences related to
medicine during the Middle Ages. New York 1911. $2.00 net.
MODERN PROGRESS AND HISTORY
Academic addresses on How Old the New. New York,
1911. $2.00 net.
THE THIRTEENTH GREATEST OF CENTURIES
5th edition (50,000). 116 illustrations, 600 pages
Catholic Summer School Press, 1911. Postpaid $3.50.
_IN PREPARATION_
MAKERS OF ASTRONOMY
THE DOLPHIN PRESS SERIES
CATHOLIC CHURCHMEN IN SCIENCE
First and second series, each $1.00 net.
PSYCHOTHERAPY
Lectures on The Influence of the Mind on the Body
delivered at Fordham University School of Medicine. Appletons,
New York, 1912, $6.00 net.
[Illustration:
SEBASTIANO DEL PIOMBO, CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS
(METROPOLITAN MUSEUM. NEW YORK)]
The Century of Columbus
BY
JAMES J. WALSH, K.C.St.G., M.D., Ph.D., LL.D.
LITT.D. (Georgetown), Sc.D. (Notre Dame)
PROFESSOR OP PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY AT THE CATHEDRAL
COLLEGE; LIFE MEMBER OF THE NEW YORK HISTORICAL
SOCIETY, MEMBER OF THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF MEDICINE.
OF THE GERMAN AND FRENCH SOCIETIES OF THE HISTORY
OF MEDICINE. OF THE ITALIAN SOCIETY FOR THE
HISTORY OF THE NATURAL AND THE MEDICAL
SCIENCES, OF THE ST. LOUIS MEDICAL HISTORY
CLUB, THE NEW ORLEANS PARISH MEDICAL
SOCIETY, A.M.A., A.A.A.S., ETC.
WITH EIGHTY-SIX ILLUSTRATIONS
CATHOLIC SUMMER SCHOOL PRESS
New York, 1914
Copyright, 1914
James J. Walsh
THE QUINN & BODEN CO. PRESS
RAMWAY, N. J.
To The Knights of Columbus
for whom the material here presented in book form was originally
gathered for lectures in many parts of the country and whose hearty
interest in the dissemination of historical truth has encouraged its
completion, this book is fraternally and respectfully dedicated by
the author.
"There come from time to time, eras of more favorable conditions, in
which the thoughts of men draw nearer together than is their wont, and
the many interests of the intellectual world combine in one complete
type of general culture. The fifteenth century ... is one of these
happier eras; and what is sometimes said of the age of Pericles is
true of that of Lorenzo--it is an age productive of personalities,
many-sided, centralized, complete. Here, artists and philosophers and
those whom the action of the world has elevated and made keen, do not
live in isolation, but breathe a common air, and catch light and heat
from each other's thoughts. There is a spirit of general elevation and
enlightenment in which all alike communicate. ... That solemn
fifteenth century can hardly be studied too much, not merely for its
positive results in the things of the intellect and the imagination,
its concrete works of art, its special and prominent personalities,
with their profound aesthetic charm, but for its general spirit and
character, for the ethical qualities of which it is a consummate
type."
Walter Pater, _The Renaissance._
{vii}
PREFACE
In a previous book, "The Thirteenth Greatest of Centuries," I
described the period of human activity in which, as it appears to me,
more was accomplished that is of significance in the expression of
what is best in man and for the development of humanity than during
any corresponding period of the world's history. To many people it may
now seem that I am setting up a rival to the Thirteenth Century in
what is here called The Century of Columbus, the period from 1450 to
1550. I may as a foreword say, then, that there is no thought of that
and that I still feel quite sure that the Thirteenth is the Greatest
of Centuries, though it must be admitted that probably more supremely
great men were at work in Columbus' Century than in the preceding
period. The Thirteenth Century is greatest, however, because its
achievements were more widely diffused in their influence and because
more of mankind had the opportunity and the incentive to bring out the
highest that was in them, than at any other period in the world's
history. As a consequence a greater proportion of mankind was happy
than ever before or since, for happiness comes only with the
consciousness of good work done and the satisfaction of personal
achievement. And that is the greatest period of human history when man
is the happiest.
The Renaissance, however, for it is practically the period in history
usually known by that name which is here called the Century of
Columbus, achieved results in every mode of human endeavor that have
been inspiring models for all succeeding generations, most of all our
own. Just why greatness in human achievement should thus occur in
periods long separated from each other is hard to understand. I have
sometimes suggested that there is probably a biological law in the
matter, the factors of which are not well understood as yet. Every
third or fourth year the farmer expects to have an apple or fruit
year, as it is called--that is, to reap a fine fruit harvest, the
{viii} fruit product of the intervening years having often been quite
indifferent. Man is much more complex than the fruits and so it takes
a longer interval to prepare a great human harvest, hence humanity has
its supreme fruitage only every third or fourth century. Undoubtedly
Columbus' Century is one of the finest fruit periods of human history.
There was nothing that the men of the time did not do supremely well,
and a great many of them did nearly everything that they took in hand
better than any of their successors. As a curious contrast to our
time, very few of them limited themselves to any one mode of
expression. Because of its very contradiction of a great many of our
prevalent impressions, as for instance the universal persuasion of
constant human evolution and the supposed progress of mankind from
year to year but surely from century to century, and the thought so
common, that after all we must now be far ahead of the past,--though
there is abundant evidence of the vanity of this self-complacency--the
story of Columbus' Century should be interesting to our generation.
Since it furnishes the background of history on which alone the real
significance of the discovery of our continent just after the end of
the Middle Ages can be properly seen, it should have a special appeal
to Americans. These are the reasons for writing the book.
Owing to the large field that is covered, the author can scarcely hope
to have escaped errors of detail. His only thought is that the broad
view of the whole range of achievement may be sufficiently helpful to
those interested in the history of human culture to compensate for
faults that were almost inevitable. Its comprehensiveness may give the
book a suggestive and retrospective value. It is addressed not to the
special student but to the general reader interested in all phases of
human accomplishment who wishes to fill in the outlines of political
history with the story of the intellectual and ethical life of a great
epoch. Thanks are due to Mr. Stephen Horgan for material aid in the
selection of illustrations, no easy task because of the immense
material to choose from. A definite effort has been made to avoid the
well-known masterpieces and have the illustrations add to the
knowledge of the time.
{ix}
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION xxv
The discovery of America but one of a series of notable achievements
in Columbus' time.
His century, 1450 to 1550, had more great men than any other in
human history.
In the arts it is unsurpassed.
In its deeds it rivals every other century, above all in social
work, in scholarship, in education and in its achievements in the
sciences, physical as well as biological, and in medicine and
surgery.
Its literature is behind that of certain other periods of history,
but this is the age of Leo X and one of the most interesting epochs
of world literature in every European country.
BOOK I. THE BOOK OF THE ARTS
CHAPTER I
GREAT PAINTERS; RAPHAEL 1
Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo the world's greatest
painters.
Raphael, greatest of religious painters.
Born at Urbino.
Duke Frederick patron of art.
Studies with Timotheo Viti and Perugino.
Influence of Fra Bartolommeo.
Work at Rome.
Stanze of the Vatican.
Camera della Segnatura.
Cartoons for Sistine tapestries.
Sistine Madonna.
Raphael, art director and archaeologist.
CHAPTER II
LEONARDO DA VINCI 15
"Mona Lisa."
Walter Pater's tribute.
The "Last Supper" disclosed genius and methods of artist.
The "Madonna of the Rocks."
Sculptor, engineer, geologist, anatomist, zoologist, botanist and
biologist.
Dissections and proposed text-book of anatomy.
Career as artist.
Surpasses his master Verrocchio.
Scientific interests.
Inventor.
Personality, philosophy of life.
Burckhardt's summary--"colossal genius"
{x}
CHAPTER III
MICHELANGELO 32
Humble origin of world's greatest genius.
Little interest in books.
Studio of Ghirlandajo.
Academy of Lorenzo de' Medici.
Dissections.
Early works.
Pieta, reason for youthfulness of mother.
David.
Tomb of Pope Julius.
Galley Slaves.
Decoration of the Sistine Chapel.
Moses.
Sacristy of San Lorenzo.
"Four-souled" Michelangelo's sonnets.
Practical genius. Family cares.
Advice on marriage.
Friendship with Vittoria Colonna.
Attitude toward religion.
Influence waxes with time
CHAPTER IV
SECONDARY ITALIAN PAINTERS OF THE CENTURY: FRA ANGELICO,
PERUGINO, FRA BARTOLOMMEO, BOTTICELLI, BELLINI, TITIAN,
CORREGGIO, TINTORETTO, VERONESE AND OTHERS 53
A century rich in painters.
Fra Angelico the mystic.
Perugino the teacher of Raphael;
at the Sistine Chapel;
pictures mistaken for Raphael's.
Fra Bartolommeo's greatest works.
Botticelli's mythology and psychology;
Madonnas;
illustrations of Dante.
Bellini's portraits;
Madonnas.
Titian's wonderful color;
religious pictures;
portraits;
mythological scenes.
Piero dei Franceschi.
Luca Signorelli.
Melozzo da Forli.
Correggio a middle-term between the various Italian schools;
"Most skilful artist since the ancient Greeks."
Tintoretto master of drawing and world artist.
"The composition of Michelangelo and the coloring of Titian."
Veronese's magnificent large pictures.
CHAPTER V
PAINTING OUTSIDE OF ITALY 71
The Netherlands:
The brothers Van Eyck forerunners;
Roger van der Weyden;
Memling's paintings at the Hospital of St. John, Bruges;
Dirk Bouts;
Quentin Matsys;
Lucas van Leyden;
Gerard David;
Justus of Ghent;
Jan van Mabuse;
Bernard van Orley;
Blondeel.
Nuremberg rival of Bruges;
Duerer;
the Holbeins.
France:
The Clouets;
Cousin;
Fouquet
Spain:
Navarrete;
Juan de Borgona;
Luis de Vargas;
Pablo de Cespedes.
Women painters in Spain
CHAPTER VI
SCULPTURE IN ITALY 85
Ghiberti's doors for the Baptistery at Florence.
Donatello.
The great equestrian statues of Gatamelata and Colleoni.
Donatello's St. George,
St. Francis,
Bambino Gesu,
St. John the Baptist
Donatello's personality.
His paralysis.
{xi}
Luca della Robbia, sculptor, worker in terra-cotta.
Andrea del Verrocchio, goldsmith, painter, sculptor:
"The Incredulity of St. Thomas,"
"The Colleoni."
Benvenuto Cellini, sculptor, goldsmith, writer.
John of Bologna:
Neptune,
Mercury.
The sculpture in the Certosa at Pavia.
Decadence in sculpture
CHAPTER VII
SCULPTURE AND MINOR ARTS AND CRAFTS OUTSIDE OF ITALY 97
Names of sculptors of Low Countries often unknown.
Tombs of Mary of Burgundy and Charles the Bold.
Wood-carving,
Bruges,
Leyden,
Haarlem.
Germany:
Nuremberg,
Veit Stoss,
Duerer,
Adam Kraft,
the Vischers.
St. Sebald's shrine;
Maximilian's Tomb at Innsbrueck.
France:
Colombe.
Tours a great centre of art:
Jean Fouchet and the Tomb of Agnes Sorel:
Jean Goujon and Germain Pilon.
Flemish and French tapestry.
Golden Age of tapestry.
Recent appreciation.
Beautiful altar vessels, enamels, furniture,
locks and keys, jewel boxes, armor, clocks
CHAPTER VIII
THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE CENTURY 114
Brunelleschi's dome.
Alberti's _"De re aedificatoria":_
Church of San Francesco.
Florence, Rucellai, Ricardi and Pitti Palace.
Venice;
Library of St Mark;
Palace of the Doge and of the Grimani.
Palladio at Vicenza.
Genoa, the city of palaces.
Vignola,
Villa of Pope Julius,
Palace of Caprarola.
Facade of the Certosa.
Sistine Chapel and King's College, Cambridge.
Louvain, Hotel de Ville.
Brussels the _grande place._
Spain:
University of Alcala.
Cloister of Lupiana.
Alcazar, Toledo.
Giralda tower.
France:
Louvre,
Pavillon de l'Horloge;
the Chateaux.
Architecture of the Renaissance a living force 114
CHAPTER IX
MUSIC 134
Renaissance music as original as art and literature.
Beginning in Netherlands, Ockenheim, Josquin, Arcadelt.
Degrees in music, England.
German music, Hans Sachs.
Roman music,
Claude Goudimel,
the brothers Animuccia,
the brothers Nanini,
Orlando di Lasso.
Church reform of music.
Palestrina,
career,
achievement,
recent restoration as Catholic standard.
Oratorio.
Dominant seventh.
Development of musical instruments--organ, violin
CHAPTER X
BOOKS AND PRINTS: WOOD AND METAL ENGRAVING 146
Renaissance appreciation of beautiful books.
Artistic manuscripts.
Invention of printing.
Most beautiful printed books in the world
{xii}
Our imitation.
Books of Hours.
Illustrations.
Type-cutting.
William Caxton:
his place in English prose.
Aldus Manutius:
_Editiones principes_ of all the classics;
career;
business troubles;
achievements.
Geoffrey Tory.
Simon de Collines.
Champ Fleury.
Tory, King's printer.
The dream of Poliphilo.
Fra Giocondo's illustrations.
Duerer and German wood-engraving.
Burgkmaier.
Holbein.
French wood-engraving.
German metal-engraving.
Italian illustrations.
Vesalius' anatomy.
Artistic bookbinding.
Grolier.
Decadence in bookmaking arts
BOOK II. THE BOOK OF THE DEEDS
CHAPTER I
SOCIAL WORK AND WORKERS 169
Criterion of period;
solution of social problems.
The climax of guild social influence.
Insurance features.
No poorhouses, no orphan asylums.
Care of ne'er-do-well.
Guild of Holy Cross, Stratford;
almshouses;
grammar school.
Thirty thousand guilds in England.
Philanthropy.
Sir Hugh Clopton's guild chapel and bridge.
"Tag day."
Beguines' care for dependents:
their place in history.
Lending institutions for the poor.
St. Catherine of Genoa.
Organization of charity.
St. Philip Neri;
modern appreciation.
St. Ignatius.
Savonarola.
Political complications.
Savonarola's fate.
Las Casas' care for the Indians.
St. Francis Borgia.
Torture later in history.
Witchcraft delusion post-reformation.
Decadence of charity
CHAPTER II
HOSPITALS, NURSING AND CARE FOR THE INSANE 192
The humanity that cares for the ailing.
Neglect in more recent times;
jail-like hospitals without trained attendants.
Beautiful Renaissance hospitals.
Florence's Home of the Innocents.
_Ospedale Maggiore_, Milan.
_Santo Spirito Hospital_, Rome.
Hospitals of the Beguines, Netherlands.
St. John's Hospital, Bruges.
Ample water supplies.
Religious uniform and cleanliness.
Sir Thomas More on hospitals.
Brothers of Mercy in Spain.
The Do-good Little Brothers.
Care of the insane.
Spain the leader.
The "open door."
Subsequent abuses.
Italian asylums.
Subsequent decadence
CHAPTER III
ST. IGNATIUS LOYOLA AND THE JESUITS 206
A great genius in organization.
Career.
Political and religious situation in Europe.
A new knighthood.
{xiii}
The "Little Company of Jesus."
The Spiritual Exercises.
Jesuit Missions:
India,
Japan,
China,
South America,
Reductions of Paraguay,
North America.
Jesuit Relations, gathering and transmitting knowledge.
Education of the Jesuits;
great pupils;
bibliography.
Activity in the sciences.
Jesuit astronomers.
In other fields.
All things to all men.
Ignatius' legacy of persecution and contumely
CHAPTER IV
SIR THOMAS MORE AND SOME CONTEMPORARIES 223
An artist in human will.
England at More's birth.
Youth.
Marriage.
Opposes the King.
Studies, Louvain, Paris.
Busy barrister, care for the poor.
Friendship with Erasmus.
Family life.
Margaret More.
Linacre.
Dean Colet.
Lyly.
John Caius.
More's English writings.
Utopia.
Controversial writings.
Lord Chancellor,--clears the docket.
Honors and wealth or duty and death.
More's choice.
Trying situation.
Humor on the scaffold.
Lord Campbell on his execution;
on the Lord Chancellors who succeeded him
CHAPTER V
THE REFORMERS 243
Reformation or religious revolt.
Change in education and its effect on men's minds.
Janssen on intellectual movement of the Renaissance.
Reformers, Luther, Calvin, Henry VIII.
False impressions as to reformation, Hallam.
Political corruption.
Luther, Denifle, Grisar.
Luther on indulgences.
Luther and Zwingli.
Judgments of God.
Luther and Melanchthon condone bigamy.
McGiffert's comment.
Luther's discouragement.
Calvin the austere.
Life without relaxation.
Calvin's discouragement.
Execution of Servetus.
Henry VIII's conscience.
How the English people were robbed of their religion.
Cobbett, Macaulay, Frederic Harrison
and Professor Powell on the English and Scottish reformers.
Professor Briggs on Saints of the Reformation.
The counter-reformation.
Effects of the reformation
CHAPTER VI
GREAT EXPLORERS AND EMPIRE BUILDERS 262
Prince Henry the navigator.
John II of Portugal.
Bartholomew Dias.
Vasco da Gama.
Columbus.
Amerigo Vespucci.
The Cabots.
Magellan.
Circumnavigation of the globe.
South Sea discoveries.
Australia.
Verazzano in New York.
French explorers.
Empire builders old and new.
Cortes.
Pizarro.
Spanish treatment of Indians.
Contrast with ours.
Explorers of Columbus Century and of present day
{xiv}
CHAPTER VII
AMERICA IN COLUMBUS' CENTURY 275
A glorious chapter of American history before 1550.
Sidney Lee contrasts Spanish and English influence in America.
Professor Bourne on early American culture.
Mexican education.
Universities of Mexico and Lima.
Scholarship.
Educational standards.
Dr. Chanca on America.
Garcilaso de la Vega.
Professor Bourne contrasts Spanish and English education.
Printing press.
Early printed books.
First American hospital.
Champlain on Mexico.
Remains at Panama.
CHAPTER VIII
SOME GREAT WOMEN 290
Renaissance women.
Isabella of Castile.
Genius for peace and war.
Power of administration.
Education.
Housewifely virtues.
Care for Indians.
Prescott's contrast of Isabella and Elizabeth.
Vittoria Colonna.
Letter to her husband on honesty.
Poems.
Influence on men of Renaissance.
The Gonzagas.
St. Catherine of Genoa.
Battistina Vernazza.
Lucretia Borgia.
Historical traditions and facts.
Gregorovius' vindication.
Garnett on Borgia poisonings.
Aldus' praise.
Lucretia as a ruler.
Her protection of the Jews.
Her husband's love.
Victor Hugo and the Lucretian myth.
Marguerite of Navarre.
Personal character.
Care for the poor.
Mary of Burgundy.
St. Teresa.
_Mater Spiritualium_.
French, German and English tributes.
Greatest of intellectual women.
Some of her maxims.
CHAPTER IX
FEMININE EDUCATION 313
Phases of feminine education before our time.
Italian universities.
Benedictine convents.
Charlemagne's time.
St. Brigid of Ireland.
Vittorino da Feltre and his pupils.
Guarino.
Physical training.
Lucretia, the mother of Lorenzo the Magnificent.
Isabella and Beatrice D'Este.
Abundant opportunities of feminine education.
Influence on their homes.
Renaissance gardens.
_Camerini_ of Isabella D'Este.
Lucretia Borgia's apartments.
Feminine devotion to social problems.
Comparison with our own time.
Public appearances.
Olympia Morata.
Angela Merici, founder in education.
The Ursulines and the Jesuits.
Their continued activity all over the world.
Anne of Bretagne.
Marguerite of Navarre.
Sex.
Feminine education in Spain.
Prescott's tribute.
Feminine education in England:
Margaret of Anjou,
Margaret Beaufort,
the Countess of Arundel,
Lady Jane Grey,
Mary Queen of Scots,
Queen Elizabeth,
Margaret More.
Charitas Pirkheimer.
Feminine education and religion.
"Beauty, disposition, education, virtue, piety combined
to make them harmonious human beings" (Burckhardt)
{xv}
CHAPTER X
PHYSICAL SCIENCE OF THE CENTURY 343
Science developed as wonderfully as art and literature.
Translations of the classics of science.
Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa.
Puerbach.
Regiomontanus.
Cardinal Bessarion.
Scientific scholars in Italy from all over the world.
Linacre, Vesalius, Caius.
Toscanelli and Columbus.
Copernicus and a new universe.
His attitude toward the reformation.
Leonardo da Vinci, scientist and inventor.
The scientific spirit.
Telesio and the inductive method.
Chemistry in medicine.
Basil Valentine and Paracelsus.
Columbus and the declination of the magnetic needle
CHAPTER XI
BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES 360
Nature study in the Middle Ages.
Anatomists of the Renaissance.
Acute Italian observation.
Leonardo da Vinci.
Supposed Church opposition to dissection.
All the artists dissectors.
Vesalius, father of modern anatomy.
Columbus, Fallopius, Eustachius, Aranzi, Servetus.
Caesalpinus.
Circulation of the blood.
Harvey's indebtedness to the Italian anatomists.
Botany.
Leonardo da Vinci, Brunfels, Fuchs, Tragus,
Euricius and Valerius Cordus.
Tributes to Valerius Cordus.
Caesalpinus as a botanist.
Ruellius and Pierre Belon in France.
Spanish and Portuguese studies of American and Indian plants
CHAPTER XII
MEDICINE 381
Standards of education.
Clinical teaching.
Rabelais' principles.
Early printed medical books.
Leonicenus.
Linacre.
Caius.
Montanus.
Paracelsus,
chemistry and medicine,
physical factors,
in therapy,
occupation diseases.
Rejection of pretensions to knowledge.
Paracelsus' contributions to surgery.
Animal magnetism.
Absurdities.
Basil Valentine.
Theories of auto-toxaemia.
Cornelius Agrippa.
Influence of mind on body.
Pathological anatomy.
Benivieni.
Joost van Lom.
Schenck von Graffenberg.
Petrus Forestus.
Fracastorius.
Pare on gout.
Drugs from the new world.
Botanical gardens.
Theory and observation.
Mental diseases, differentiation.
Balneotherapy.
Jerome Cardan, absurdities.
Cornaro's longevity.
Sanitary regulations.
Pure food laws.
Popular hygiene.
Alcoholic beverages.
Health boards in Italy.
Tuberculosis contagion.
Sir Thomas More on the place of the physician
{xvi}
CHAPTER XIII
SURGERY 409
Printing of old surgical text-books.
Magnificent hospitals.
Study of gunshot wounds.
Ambroise Pare.
Experiments with bullets.
Surgical specialties.
Orthopedics.
Bone surgery.
Blood transfusion.
Tracheotomy tube.
Magnet in surgery.
Cesarean operation.
Gynaecology and obstetrics.
Heart surgery.
Cosmetic surgery.
Artificial noses, lips and eyelids.
Aseptic surgery.
Pyemia as an infectious disease.
Paracelsus against meddlesome surgery.
German surgeons.
Pfolspeundt, tubes in intestinal surgery.
Brunschwig on the necessity of anatomy.
Stiffened bandages.
Gerssdorff, surgery of anchyloses.
Hall on experience in surgery.
Gurlt's four hundred pages on Renaissance surgery
BOOK III. THE BOOK OF THE WORDS
CHAPTER I
LATIN LITERATURE 427
Latin the universal language of scholars.
Three great books:
The "Imitation of Christ,"
"Utopia" and the
"Spiritual Exercises" of St Ignatius.
The "Imitation" the most influential of human books.
Other works by a Kempis.
Tributes to the "Imitation";
saints, jurists, soldiers, scholars agree in lauding it.
One of the world's supremely great books.
Illustrative passages.
The Ode on Love.
"Utopia" and Plato's "Republic" and St. Augustine's "City of God."
A vivid piece of fiction.
A profound social study.
Translation by Bishop Burnet.
The "Spiritual Exercises" a book of things, not words.
Erasmus' _"Colloquia"_ and the _"Encomium Moriae"_
CHAPTER II
ITALIAN LITERATURE 442
Age of Leo X.
Ariosto "very nearly if not quite supreme" (Saintsbury).
Orlando Furioso.
Ariosto's similes, sonnet.
Italian Mystery and Miracle plays.
Ballads.
Carnival songs.
Lorenzo de' Medici as a poet.
Italian prose.
Machiavelli,
history,
plays,
poems,
fiction,
"a universal genius" (Garnett).
Guicciardini, history, reminiscences.
Vasari--Lives of the Painters.
Italian fiction,
Ariente,
Luigi da Porto,
Illicini,
Machiavelli's "Belphagor."
Cinthio.
Bandello.
Licentious stories intended to lessen license.
Autobiography of Benevenuto Cellini, Castiglione's
"Cortigiano" not the "Autobiography," the symbol
of the century's thought and philosophy of life
{xvii}
CHAPTER III
FRENCH LITERATURE 462
Villon.
Prince Charles of Orleans.
Clement Marot.
Francis I as an author.
Margaret of Navarre.
"The Marguerites" of Marguerite.
A French poetess of passion.
Melin de Saint Gelais' epigrams.
The Pleiades.
Ronsard's "Prince and Peasant."
Joachim du Bellay.
French prose, Comines, Amyot's translations.
Rabelais'
misunderstood genius,
his life,
evidence for tolerance of time,
modern studies and influence.
Embodiment of French Renaissance
CHAPTER IV
SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE LITERATURE 476
Queen Isabella's letters.
St. Teresa's mystical writings.
The Tales of Chivalry.
Amadis de Gaul.
Tales of Roguery, Celestina, Lazarillo de Tormes.
Mystical writers,
John of Avila,
Luis de Granada and
Luis de Leon.
Spanish poetry--Boscan and Garcilaso de la Vega.
Camoeens "greatest of modern epic poets" (Schlegel).
Shorter poems.
Love sonnets.
CHAPTER V
ENGLISH LITERATURE 485
English dramatic literature--
"Everyman,"
Passion and Nativity Plays,
Interludes.
"Marriage of Witte and Science"
first play marked off into acts and scenes.
Dramatic quality of the Morality Plays.
John Skelton's work.
John Heywood's Interludes, "The Four P's," illustrative passage.
Social and religious satire, "Ralph Royster Doyster."
Percy's "Reliques," "Ancient Ballad of Chevy Chase."
Malory's "Morte d' Arthur," Caxton's Translations.
Scotch poetry.
James I.
"The King's Quair."
Blind Harry, Robert Henryson, Gawin Douglas and William Dunbar.
English poetry, Howard Earl of Surrey and Sir Thomas Wyeth.
More's place in English prose.
Life of Edward V.
Berner's translation of Froissart.
Collects of the English prayer-book.
Tyndale and Coverdale's Translations of the Scriptures.
CHAPTER VI
SCHOLARSHIP IN ITALY 501
Italy Alma Mater Studiorum.
The New Learning.
AEneas Sylvius (Pope Pius II).
Cardinal Bessarion.
{xviii}
Greek teachers, Chalcondyles, Gaza, Trebizond and Argyropulos.
Pope Nicholas V.
Academy of Florence.
Landino, Ficino and Politian.
Italian academies.
Pomponius Laetus,
Platina,
Roman Academy,
Vitruvian Academy,
Academy of Naples,
Venice,
Calepinus.
Pico della Mirandola.
CHAPTER VII
THE SCHOLARSHIP OF THE TEUTONIC COUNTRIES 513
Nowhere scholarship deeper than in Germany.
Brothers of the Common Life, founders, purpose.
Great pupils.
Nicholas of Cusa.
Rudolph Agricola.
John of Dalberg.
Jacob Wimpheling.
Alexander Hegius.
Erasmus.
Melanchthon.
Reuchlin.
Ulrich von Hutten.
Conrad Muth (Mutianus).
Conrad Celtes, edition of Hroswitha's plays.
Duerer and Wilibald Pirkheimer.
Sandys on the German Humanists.
Janssen on classic culture and Christian scholarship.
Critical studies.
CHAPTER VIII
SCHOLARSHIP OUTSIDE OF ITALY AND GERMANY 531
Every country in Europe interested in the New Learning.
The first teacher of the French, Aleander, an Italian.
Bude (Budaeus), devotion to study.
Foundation of College de France.
Toussain, Turnebus, Rabelais, Montaigne.
Rabelais "science without conscience is the ruination of the soul."
The Scaligers.
Spanish scholars:
Guzman,
Antonio of Lebriza,
Barbosa,
all three students in Italy.
Cardinal Ximenes,
the University of Alcala, Complutensian Polyglot.
Grammar under the domination of Spanish minds.
Portugal, the University of Coimbra.
England early shared enthusiasm for New Learning.
Linacre, John Free and Caius were teachers at Italian universities.
Lord Grey of Codnor; John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester.
Erasmus on English scholarship.
Greek students:
Selling,
Grocyn,
William Latimer,
Lily,
John Fisher.
Critical scholarship.
APPENDIX I
SIR THOMAS MORE AND MAN'S SOCIAL PROBLEMS 545
Religious toleration and More's practice.
Standing armies and their evils.
"Balanced fear" and the balance of power.
Over-estimation of gold and precious stones.
A living wage.
Not pleasure but virtue the end of life.
Forest conservation.
Scientific books.
Division of time.
More's own home.
{xix}
APPENDIX II
AFTER THE REFORMATION 553
Decadence in the arts, education, scholarship and humanitarianism
begins immediately after the Reformation and culminates at the
end of the eighteenth century.
Education not freer; academic liberty less (Prof. Paulsen).
The New Learning and the Reform doctrines.
Bishop Bale on the neglect of books.
Wanton destruction of libraries.
Decadence in art, "King Whitewash and Queen Ugliness supreme."
Gerhard Hauptmann on decay in art as the exorbitant price
of personal freedom of conscience.
Decline of charity.
Jail-like hospitals.
Dissolution of social organization.
Superstition and torture rampant after the Reformation.
The Witchcraft delusion.
Political decadence.
The pre-Reformation House of Lords.
Popular holidays obliterated.
Internationalism overshadowed.
Modern social progress a reversion to mediaeval notions.
{xx}
{xxi}
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
1. Sebastiano del Piombo, Christopher Columbus
(Metropolitan Museum, New York) _Frontispiece_
2. Carpaccio, Meeting of Sts. Joachim and Anna. Opposite page xxix
3. Titian, Emperor Charles V xxxiv
4. Raphael, Drawing of Slaughter of Innocents. On page 3
5. Raphael, Dream of the Knight Opposite page 4
6. Raphael, School of Athens Opposite page 8
7. Raphael, Poetry (Mosaic, Vatican) Opposite page 14
8. Leonardo da Vinci, Madonna of the Rocks Opposite page 20
9. Raphael, Pope Julius II Opposite page 37
10. Fra Angelico, St Francis Opposite page 53
11. Perugino, Entombment (Pitti) Opposite page 56
12. Borgognone, St. Catharine of Alexandria Opposite page 57
13. Botticelli, Illustration for Dante On page 61
14. Bellini, Doge Loredano Opposite page 62
15. Correggio, Marriage of St. Catherine (Louvre) Opposite page 66
16. Gossaert, Virgin and Child Jesus
(Italian Influence over Flemish) Opposite page 69
17. Van der Weyden, Mater Dolorosa Opposite page 71
18. Quentin Matsys, Legend of St. Ann (Centre) Opposite page 73
19. Van Oriey, Dr. Zelle Opposite page 74
20. Duerer, Title Page of Life of Blessed Virgin On page 76
21. Clouet, Francois, Elizabeth of Austria On page 79
22. Navarrete, St. Peter and St. Paul (Escurial) On page 81
23. Cespedes, The Last Supper (Cathedral, Cordova) On page 83
24. Bertoldo di Giovanni, Battle (Bargello) Opposite page 85
25. Rosselino, Antonio, Madonna Opposite page 87
26. Donatello, Gatamelata Opposite page 91
27. Benedetto Rovezzano, Chimney Piece Opposite page 95
28. Pulpit, Leyden Opposite page 98
29. Duerer, St John Baptist Preaching
(Bas-relief in carved wood) On page 100
30. King Arthur (Innsbruck) On page 103
31. Henry VIII on Field of Cloth of Gold
(Bas-relief, Rouen) On page 104
32. Goujon, Jewel Cabinet On page 106
33. Armor (fifteenth century, Paris) On page 108
34. Scent Box, chased gold On page 111
{xxii}
35. Seats (fifteenth century miniatures) On page 112
36. Clock (Paris) On page 113
37. Alberti, San Francesco (Rimini) On page 115
38. Michelangelo, St. Peter's (Rome) On page 116
39. Alberti, Rucellai Palace (Florence) On page 119
40. Court, Doge's Palace (Venice) On page 121
41. Palladio, Barbarano Palace (Vicenza) On page 123
42. Hotel de Ville (Louvain) Opposite page 124
43. Alcala, Paranimfo On page 125
44. Alcala, Archiepiscopal Palace Court On page 126
45. Cloister (Lupiana, Spain) On page 128
46. Toledo, Alcazar On page 130
47. Melozzo da Forli, Angel with Lute (Rome) Opposite page 141
48. Violin and Bass Viol, Germany On page 144
49. Verard, "Book of Hours" Border On page 147
50. Fouquet, Miniature Livy MSS. (Paris) On page 150
51. Tory, Border from "Book of Hours" On page 157
52. Tory, Page of Collines' "Book of Hours" On page 160
53. Duerer, Marriage of Blessed Virgin On page 163
54. Black Letter bordered page On page 165
55. Playing Card On page 167
56. Stratford Guild Chapel On page 175
57. Stratford, Sir Hugh Clopton's Bridge On page 176
58. Bramante, Court of Hospital (Milan) On page 195
59. Memling, Martyrdom of St. Ursula
(Bruges, Hospital of St. Jean) Opposite page 197
60. Holbein, Sir Thomas More Opposite page 223
61. Matteo Civitale, Faith (Bargello) Opposite page 243
62. Holbein, Henry VIII (London) Opposite page 255
63. Filippino Lippi, Madonna with Four Saints Opposite page 260
64. Stradan, Columbus on First Voyage
(niello, ivory) On page 276
65. Columbus' Title of Letter On page 282
66. Columbus' Page from Letter (1494-) On page 283
67. Hospital, Mexico (founded before 1524) Opposite page 287
68. Hospital, (another view) Opposite page 287
69. Crivelli, Madonna Enthroned Opposite page 290
70. Holbein, Queen Catherine of Aragon Opposite page 293
71. Titian, Presentation of Virgin Opposite page 296
72. Palma Vecchio, St. Barbara Opposite page 304
73. Mostaert, Virgo Deipara (Antwerp) Opposite page 312
74. Bellini, Madonna, St. Catherine and
Mary Magdalen (Venice) Opposite page 318
75. Pinturicchio, Holy Family (Siena) Opposite page 326
76. Duerer, Nativity On On page 339
77. Vivarini, St. Clare Opposite page 341
78. Titian, Paracelsus On page 386
{xxiii}
79. Holbein, Dr. William Butts Opposite page 413
80. Cima da Conegliano, Christ (Dresden) Opposite page 431
81. Titian, Ariosto Opposite page 443
82. Palma Vecchio, Poet
(sometimes called Ariosto) Opposite page 449
83. Francia, Virgin Weeping over Body of Christ
(London) Opposite page 477
84. Page from early printed book, with woodcut On page 487
85. Theatre, Title Page of Terence On page 491
86. Mantegna, St. George Opposite page 501
87. Correggio, Blessed Virgin and St Sebastian Opposite page 508
88. Cima da Conegliano,
Incredulity of St Thomas (Venice) Opposite page 519
89. Tory, Francis I's Court On page 534
{xxiv}
{xxv}
INTRODUCTION
To many people the date of the discovery of America must seem somewhat
out of place. At least it must be hard for them to understand just how
it came about that before the fifteenth century closed so great a
discovery as this of a new continent could be made. The Middle Ages
are usually said to end with the Fall of Constantinople (1453), though
a number of historians in recent years have begun to date the close of
mediaeval history with the discovery of America itself. It scarcely
seems consonant with the usually accepted ideas of widespread
ignorance, lack of scientific curiosity with dearth of initiative and
absence of great human interests during the Middle Ages, that so
important an achievement as the discovery of America should have come
at this time. In spite of the growing knowledge that has revealed the
wonderful achievements of the mediaeval period, there are still a
great many people who think themselves well informed, for whom the
thousand years from about 500 to 1500 seem almost a series of blank
pages and it cannot but be very surprising to them that anyone should
have been able to rise out of the slough of despond so far as regards
human knowledge and enterprise which these times are often declared to
represent, to the climax of energy and daring and conscious successful
purpose required for the discovery of the Western Hemisphere.
Apparently only a special dispensation of Providence preparing the
modern time could possibly have brought this important discovery out
of the Nazareth of the so-called "Dark Ages."
All sorts of explanations have been deemed necessary to account for
Columbus' great discovery at this time. To some it has seemed to be
the result of a happy accident by which one of the deeply original
spirits among mankind, with the _wanderlust_ in his soul, succeeded
finally in having someone provide him with the opportunity for a long
vague voyage on which fortunately the discovery of the Western
Hemisphere was made. We hear much of happy accidents in scientific
{xxvi} discoveries and they are supposed to represent the fortunate
chances of humanity. It must not be forgotten, however, that only to
genius do these happy accidents occur. Newton discovered the laws of
gravitation after having seen the apple fall, but many billions of men
had seen apples fall before his time without being led to the faintest
hint of gravitation. Galvani touched the legs of a frog by accident
with his metal implements while making electrical experiments, and so
became "the frogs' dancing master" in the contemptuous phrase of many
of his scientific colleagues and the father of biological electricity
for us, but doubtless many others lacking his scientific insight had
seen this phenomenon without having their attention particularly
caught by it.
It has been suggested that not a little of the good fortune that
resulted in the discovery of the American Continent was due to
Columbus' obstinacy of character. He was a man who, having conceived
an idea, was bound to carry it out, cost what it might. These are, of
course, the men as a rule who make advances and discoveries and obtain
privileges for us. They are not satisfied to be as others, and the
world usually denominates them cranks. They insist on doing things
differently and their vision of great achievement does not fade or
become dim even under the clouds of objections that men are prone to
rouse against anything, and, above all, any purpose that they
themselves cannot understand. Columbus is said to have been one of
those mortals who are actually urged on by obstacles and who cannot be
made to back down from their purpose by rebuffs and refusals, or even
by the disappointments after preliminary encouragement which are so
much harder to bear. Columbus' steadfastness of character during the
voyage, which enabled him to overcome the murmurings of his men and
keep his ships to their course in spite of almost mutiny, is a reflex
of this trait of his character, and yet there have been no end of
obstinate men who have never succeeded in accomplishing anything worth
while. Once engaged on the expedition, or in the preliminaries for it,
Columbus' obstinacy of character in the better sense of that
expression was simply invaluable, but the question is. How did he
become engaged on the expedition at this time?
{xxvii}
It takes only a little consideration of the history of the time in
which Columbus was educated and the story of the accomplishment of the
men who lived around him during the half century that preceded the
discovery of America to realize exactly why the discovery was made at
this particular time. There has probably never been a period when so
many supremely great things were done or when so many men whose
enduring accomplishment has influenced all the after generations were
alive, as during the nearly seventy years of Columbus' lifetime. In
order to illustrate, then, the background of the history of the
discovery of America, it has seemed worth while to take what may be
called Columbus' Century, from 1450 to 1550, and show what was
accomplished during it. The discovery of America came just about the
middle of it and represents one of a series of great achievements made
by the men of the time which are destined never to lose in interest
for mankind. To know the other great events and great men of the
period is to appreciate better just what the discovery of America
meant and the place that Columbus' work in this regard should have in
the history of human accomplishment. The present volume can be at best
only a very brief review of the great achievements and the story of
the lives of the men of this time.
John Ruskin once said that the only proper way to know the true
significance of a period of human history was to study the book of its
arts, the book of its deeds and the book of its words, that is, to
weigh the significance of its artistic accomplishment, the meaning of
what its men did for their fellowmen and the worth of its literature
in terms of world achievement. Judged by this standard, Columbus'
Century must be placed among the greatest periods of human
accomplishment in the world's history. It is the Renaissance period
and, as everyone knows, this is a famous epoch in modern times. It has
been a favorite study of a great many scholars in a great many
generations since. It introduced many of the ideas, indeed most of the
important thoughts and inventions on which our modern progress is
founded. It is true that its great impetus came from the impulse given
by the reintroduction of Greek ideas and Greek ideals into the modern
world, but only that {xxviii} there were men of talent and genius,
capable of being stirred to achievement by Greek incentive, nothing
great would have been accomplished. Besides, while it owes much to
Greece, it is great in its own right, and its men added much to what
came to them out of Greece and adopted and adapted classic ideas and
ideals so as to make them of great significance in the modern world.
As regards The Book of the Arts of Columbus' Century, scarcely more
need be said in this introductory chapter than what has already been
suggested, that this is the Renaissance period. All the world now
knows of the art of the Renaissance and of all that was accomplished
by men who lived during the century after the Fall of Constantinople
in 1453. Every form of art, painting, sculpture, architecture, music,
as well as the arts and crafts, achieved a supreme expression at this
time. Everywhere, particularly in Italy, men started up as if a new
life had come into the world and proceeded to the accomplishment of
artistic results which had apparently been impossible to preceding
generations, and, alas for the notion of human progress! have often
been the despair of succeeding generations. If imitation is the
sincerest flattery, then these artists of the Renaissance period have
indeed been flattered, for it has almost been the rule in the after
time to imitate them and even the greatest of the artists of
succeeding generations have been deeply influenced by the work of
these men and usually have been quite willing to confess how much they
owe to them.
In Italy the list of names of painters who were at this time doing
work which the world will never willingly let die, is long and
glorious. There has never been a period of equal influence and
achievement in this mode of art in the history of the race. Almost
every city in Italy produced a group of painters during this century
who would make a whole nation famous in any other period. The
Florentine School surpasses all the others in importance, and such
names as Fra Angelico, Benozzo Gozzoli, Fra Bartolommeo, Lippo Lippi
and Filippino Lippi, Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, Leonardo da Vinci,
Andrea del Sarto, Masaccio and Michelangelo, occur in its history.
Venice produced in the first half of our period such men as the
Vivarinis, the Bellinis, Titian, Carpaccio, Palma Vecchio, Giorgione
and Lorenzo Lotti, worthy predecessors of the great names that were to
come in the second half--Tintoretto and Paolo Veronese.
[Illustration: CARPACCIO, MEETING OF STS. JOACHIM AND ANNA]
{xxix}
The Umbrian School of painters includes a group of men born in the
hill towns of Umbria, to be credited, therefore, to more than a single
city, but their greatness is sufficient for the glory of any number of
cities,--Gentile da Fabriano, Bonfigli, Perugino and his pupils,
Pinturicchio, Lo Spagna, and many others, above all Raphael. Bologna
possessed the three Caracci, Guido, Domenichino and Guercino. Parma
had Correggio, Ferrara, Dosso Dossi and Garofalo; Padua, Andrea
Mantegna and his master, Squarcione, and Rome, the pupils of Raphael,
Giulio Romano, Sassoferato and Carlo Maratta and Da Imola. These
schools of Italian painting embrace all the modes of expression with
the brush in their scope.
The other countries of Europe, however, were not without distinguished
representatives of the wondrous art spirit of the time. In Germany,
there were Albrecht Duerer and the Holbeins, in the Lowlands the Van
Eycks' greatest work came just before the opening of the century and
inspired Memling, Van der Weyden, Quentin Matsys and others. In Spain,
such men as Zurbaran and Ribalta were worthy forerunners of the great
geniuses Velasquez and Murillo, who represent the aftermath of the
glorious harvest of the workers in the field of art during this
Renaissance period. They were all willing to confess their obligations
to the great painters of the preceding age and their work is really a
continuation of that Renaissance spirit. The accomplishment of the
painters of Columbus' period proved as copious in stimulus for
subsequent painters as the great navigators' discovery of America
proved the stimulus to explorers, discoverers and empire makers during
the subsequent century. A great wind of the spirit was blowing abroad
and men were deeply affected by it, and accomplished results almost
undreamt of before, and even when the wind of the spirit was dying
down it still moved men to achievements that had only been surpassed
during the immediately preceding period and that were to be looked up
to with admiration and {xxx} envy and given that sincerest of praise,
imitation, during all the succeeding centuries.
The artists of Columbus Century, this great Renaissance period, were
never merely artists. Some of them, like Michelangelo and Leonardo da
Vinci, though among the greatest painters in the world, preferred to
think of themselves as something else than painters. Leonardo has
painted the greatest of portraits, but was a great engineer, an
architect, an inventor, a scientist, and anything else that he cared
to turn his hand to. Michelangelo was undoubtedly a great painter, yet
this was the least of his accomplishments, for he was greater as an
architect, a sculptor, and perhaps even as a poet, than he was as a
painter. Raphael, besides being a painter, was an architect and above
all an archaeologist. It was a sad loss to classic archaeology that he
did not live to accomplish his plan of making a model of old Rome. He
was a great student of the technics of his art and if he had not died
at the early age of thirty-seven would surely have accomplished much
besides painting. Many of the painters and sculptors of the time had
been goldsmiths or workers in metal, and nearly all of them were
handicraftsmen, handy with their hands and capable of doing things.
Practically all of them were architects and many of them proved their
powers in this regard. A man of the Renaissance always thought that he
could do anything well, and specialism was the last thing in the world
thought of. Their confidence in their own powers gave them a wonderful
breadth of ability to accomplish.
In sculpture the roll of great names is scarcely less wonderful than
that of the great painters. It includes such men as Verrocchio and
Leopardi, Donatello, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, the Della
Robbias, Benvenuto Cellini and many others of less fame in this great
period, but who would have been looked up to as wonder workers in the
art at any other time. The sculpture work, for instance, that was
accomplished in connection with Certosa at Pavia, though out of
harmony with some of the true aims of sculpture, shows how beautifully
Renaissance men worked out artistic ideas of any kind. Glorious as is
the list of sculptors in Italy, other countries are by no means
eclipsed by Italian pre-eminence. The work of {xxxi} the great
sculptors of Nuremberg, Adam Kraft and Peter Vischer, as well as of
the coterie of sculptors who did the wonderful group of heroes at
Innsbruck, show how the wind of the spirit of genius in art was
blowing abroad everywhere. In the Low Countries, while we do not
always know the names of the sculptors, their beautiful monuments are
with us. Such beautiful work as the Tomb of Mary of Burgundy, made by
Peter Beckere of Brussels, is an enduring memorial of artistic
excellence. There are wood carvings everywhere through the Low
Countries that display the artistic genius of the time, In France,
Colombe, trained in Flanders, did beautiful work, and Jean Juste and
his son have left a monument of their sculptural genius in the
Cathedral at Tours. Jean Fouchet made the lovely tomb of Agnes Sorel
at Loches, and after the spirit of the Renaissance had come to France,
Jean Goujon and Germain Pilon achieved their masterpieces. The reliefs
of Jean Goujon for the "Fountain of the Innocents" are very well known
and often to be seen in copies. The "Three Graces" of Germain Pilon,
though already there is perhaps some sign of decadence, is a charming
work of art that has never been excelled in the more modern time.
In architecture, Columbus' Century is, if anything, more famous than
for its accomplishment in other arts. Almost every city in Italy has a
distinguished architect who has left behind him a monument of genius.
Brunelleschi died just before the century; Bramante, Alberti, Leonardo
da Vinci, and above all, Michelangelo, are the great names of the
time. Such other names as Palladio, Sangallo, della Porta, Sansovino
and San Michele come after these, and the work of this group of men
has more influenced succeeding generations than any other. The
monuments of this time include the Cathedral of Santa Croce at
Florence, St. Peter's at Rome and many of the great palaces and
hospitals that now are the subject of so much admiration and attention
from scholarly visitors to Italy. In our own time the reproduction of
Renaissance architectural types and the careful study of what the
Italian Renaissance did in modifying for modern use classic types of
architecture has done more to give us handsome monumental buildings
than any other inspiration that men have had. {xxxii} Unfortunately,
the Renaissance in its adoration of classic types and ideals developed
a contempt for the older Gothic architecture that had many sad effects
on taste in art, but the people of the period succeeded in building a
glorious monument to themselves for all time.
This same century saw the rise and marvellous development of music in
nearly every department of that art and in a way that strikingly
illustrates how the genius of this time gave to men a power of lofty
expression in every aesthetic mode. In this form of art Italy was not
as in other departments of aesthetics the leader, though she proved
the apt pupil, excelling before the close of the period even her
masters. It is to the Flemings that we owe the great beginnings of
music at this time, as we also owe to them and to their brethren of
Holland so much in all the arts. Ockenheim of Hainault and his pupils,
above all Josquin, developed the technique of polyphonic music, and
Flanders furnished music masters for every important capital in
Europe. Claude Goudimel, born at Avignon, but educated in Flanders,
opened his famous school of music in Rome in the first half of the
sixteenth century, and while not perhaps, as has often been said, the
teacher of Palestrina, he helped to create the Roman school in which
developed the brothers Animuccia and the brothers Nanini. Orlando de
Lasso did his work at this time, and Stefano Vanneo of Recanati
published his treatise on counterpoint in 1531. The use of the chord
of the dominant seventh was invented and St. Philip Neri encouraged
those religious musical exercises which culminated first in the
Oratorio and subsequently in what we know as opera.
As always happens in a really great artistic period, there was a
magnificent development of the crafts as well as of the arts. When
such men as Verrocchio, probably even Leonardo da Vinci himself,
Pollaiuolo and Benvenuto Cellini were looked upon as goldsmiths as
well as sculptors, it is easy to understand how thoroughly artistic
was the goldsmithery of the time. As a matter of fact, most of the
artists of the Renaissance were trained in workshops. These were not
only technical schools, but art schools of the finest kind. As a
consequence not only in gold and metal work, but in every {xxxiii}
other craft, art impulses of lofty achievement are noted. The stained
glass of the time is among the most beautiful ever made. All
glass-making and porcelain reached a high plane of perfection. It is
interesting to note the decadence of fine glass-making that begins
toward the end of our period. Gem-cutting reached a climax of
perfection at this time that has ranked Renaissance gems among the
most precious in the world. The art of the medal and the medallion was
another artistic specialty of this time in which it has probably never
been excelled and very seldom equalled. In book-making artistic
craftsmanship surpassed itself. Before the development of printing as
the exclusive mode of making books there was a marvellous evolution of
illuminated hand-made books. Many specimens still extant are among the
most beautiful in the world. With these as models the printed books
came to be just as wonderful artistic products and so we have during
Columbus' period the finest book-making that the world has ever known.
Every portion of the book, the print, the spacing, the paper, the
binding was artistically done. What seemed a mere handicraft was
lifted to the plane of art and whenever in the aftertime--and never
more so than in our own period--men have wanted models for beautiful
book-making they have gone back to those produced during this period.
THE BOOK OF THE DEEDS of the century will be best appreciated from the
names of the doers, the men of action, of this wonderful time. History
was indeed making. What came with the rise of the Portuguese empire
mainly through the influence of Prince Henry and of the Spanish Empire
in America under Ferdinand and Isabella were only the great beginnings
of the wealth and power Europe was to draw from over-sea colonies.
Unfortunately the century was a period of political unrest. The
seething spirit that led to great achievement in every department gave
rise to many wars and disturbances. The Wars of The Roses in England
and the many wars in Italy, with the political disaffection in Germany
and the disturbed state of France, made human life very cheap just
when it was capable of most enduring accomplishment. Great monarchs
like the Emperor Charles V, Francis I, king of France, and Henry VIII
of England worked good and harm {xxxiv} in proportions very hard to
estimate properly. There was never a more tyrannical king than Henry
VIII and probably never a less just one than Francis I. Bishop Stubbs,
the English constitutional historian, has claimed for Charles V the
right to the title great, yet there is so much that is at least
questionable about his career as a ruler that history will probably
never willingly accord it. The military exploits, the courtly
intrigues, the corrupt diplomacy, the exhibition of the ugliest traits
of mankind were all emphasized in this period because great men are
great also in the ill they do, but fortunately there is another side
to the book of the deeds of the century worth while reading.
Among the events of the century are the great Battle of Pavia at which
Francis I of France was defeated so thoroughly that afterwards, while
confined in the Certosa, he sent the famous despatch to his mother,
"All is lost save honor." This century saw also the famous meeting of
the Field of the Cloth of Gold at which both English and French nobles
went so gaily attired and with so many handsome changes of raiment
that literally not a few of them "carried their castles on their
backs." Their subsequent bankruptcy strengthened the hands of the
crown in both countries. This unfortunately did more than anything
else to lay the foundations of that absolutism which needed the French
Revolution and its successors in other countries of the past century
to break up. It was the time of the famous Diet of Worms and of all
the political and religious disturbances which have been called the
Reformation, though in recent years historians have come to recognize
the movement not as a great epoch-making reform in religion, of which
it brought about the disintegration by its doctrine of individual
judgment, but as a religious revolt affecting the Northern nations of
Europe, disturbing the continuity of the traditions of culture and
education and art which had been so completely under the influence of
the old Church and which among these Northern nations were not caught
up again for several centuries after this unfortunate division in
Christianity.
[Illustration: TITIAN, EMPEROR CHARLES V. ]
The greatest accomplishment of this period, however, was its
scholarship. In every country in Europe men devoted {xxxv} themselves
to the study of the Latin and Greek classics and opportunities for
education of the highest import were accorded everywhere. They were no
merely dry-as-dust scholars, and the names of such men as AEneas
Sylvius Piccolomini, who was afterwards Pope Pius II; of Aldus
Manutius, the great Venetian printer; of Leon Battista Alberti, famous
not only as a scholar, but as an architect and an artist in every
mode, and Lorenzo de' Medici himself, are only brilliant examples in a
single country of a scholarship that was eminently productive and
influential. In every country in Europe the story is the same. At the
beginning of this book it seemed that the scholarship of the century
might be summed up in a single chapter. I found that even a single
chapter for Italy was quite inadequate and that the Teutonic countries
of themselves required another chapter even for a quite incomplete
record of their scholarly achievements. Rudolph Agricola; Reuchlin,
who was known as "the three-tongued wonder" of Germany; Desiderius
Erasmus, the most influential scholar of Europe in this intellectual
period; Jacob Wimpfeling, the schoolmaster of Germany; Melanchthon,
the gentle _praeceptor Germaniae_, and all the products of the schools
of the Brethren of the Common Life serve to demonstrate the greatness
of the German scholarship of this period. In England there are such
men as Bishop Selling, Cardinal Morton, Archbishop Warham, Dean Colet,
Thomas Linacre, Dr. John Caius, Roger Ascham, Thomas More and many
others who in any other period would be reckoned among the
distinguished scholars.
And yet the other Latin countries did not lag much behind Italy and
were fair rivals of the Teutonic countries in scholarship at this
time. Queen Isabella herself learned Latin when she was already a
queen on the throne. Court fashions are sure to spread and this did.
Besides the queen encouraged Cardinal Ximenes in the production of
that magnificent monument of scholarship the Complutensian Polyglot
Bible. The development of the universities in Spain only parallels the
corresponding movement in the rest of Europe, but there were probably
more higher institutions of learning founded and above all more
refounded and re-established on a broader {xxxvi} basis at this time
than at any other corresponding period of history. In France the index
of scholarly accomplishment is the foundation of the College de
France, which was to mean so much for French intellectual life. It
made it possible for scholars to pursue their work unhampered by the
fossilized University of Paris, which had become cramped in
old-fashioned ways and for the time being was incapable of doing great
intellectual work itself and yet, owing to the charters and privileges
granted it in its flourishing period, was still capable of crushing
out the true spirit of knowledge and preventing real development.
There was never a time in the world's history when scholarship, in so
far as that term means knowledge of the great books of the past,
occupied so prominent a place in men's minds or had so much influence.
Nor has there ever been a time when so many of those in power felt
that the very best thing that they could do for their people as well
as for their own fame was the encouragement of learning. Scholars were
more highly honored than at any period in the world's history. Even
ruling princes and the higher nobility felt that they owed it to
themselves to be acquainted with the great works of literature or
pretend at least to a knowledge of them and that a portion of their
policy must be to patronize teachers and scholars of the New Learning.
To be a patron of scholars was considered quite as important as to act
in a similar capacity for painters, sculptors and architects, though
there might be more personal fame attached to securing the works of
the great masters in art. Fortunately these scholars were encouraged
in their labors, and we have a whole series of wonderful editions of
the old classics accomplished at a cost of time and labor and patience
that only a few of those who have labored at such work under ever so
much more favorable circumstances can properly appreciate. Their
editions were issued as beautiful books in this wonderful time, and so
they have remained as precious treasures for us down to our own day.
The achievements in art and scholarship in this century are well known
and universally recognized. It is seldom appreciated, however, that
the century is almost as great in its {xxxvii} wonderful progress in
science as it is in any other intellectual department. The foundations
of our modern sciences were laid broad and deep at this time, and
achievements of scientific generalization as well as accurate and
detailed observation were made, that may be placed with confidence in
comparison with those of any other time in the world's history, even
our own. Copernicus' theory probably revolutionized men's thinking
more with regard to the earth and the universe of which it forms a
part than the thought of any man has ever done during the whole
history of mankind. The great medical scientists of this period almost
as effectually revolutionized men's thinking with regard to the
constitution of men and animals as Copernicus had done with regard to
the universe. Vesalius, called the father of modern anatomy, has left
us a monument of genius in his work on the structure of the human
body, and his famous contemporaries, Eustachius, another Columbus, the
anatomist, and Caesalpinus as well as Servetus added to the knowledge
of anatomy and physiology which Vesalius had so well begun. Servetus
and Columbus described the circulation of the blood in the lungs about
the same time; and shortly after the close of our period Caesalpinus,
trained in the schools of this time, described the circulation of the
blood in the body.
In every department of biological science, in anatomy and physiology,
in pathology, in botany, in zoology, in palaeontology, in ethnology
and linguistics, in anthropology, noteworthy advances were made.
Magnificent applications of the knowledge acquired were made for the
benefit of man and animals, new plants for medicine were sought in
distant countries and a great new development of medicine took place.
None of the anatomists and physiologists of the time failed to use
their knowledge for the increase of information with regard to disease
and its treatment. Vesalius besides being a great anatomist was almost
as great a pathologist and one of the epoch-making diagnosticians of
medical history. He was the first since the Greeks to describe an
aneurism, that is the pathological dilatation of an artery through
disease or accident, and the first in the history of medicine to
demonstrate the presence of such a condition on the living subject.
Paracelsus, {xxxviii} Ambroise Pare, Linacre, John Caius and a whole
host of great teachers in Italy are names to conjure with in the
history of medicine and of surgery. There is probably no period in the
world's history that has so many names famous in medicine that the
world will never willingly let die.
The supremely great accomplishments of this time however, the true,
good and great deeds of the century, were what it did for men. This is
the period when there was more organization for social help and uplift
than at any other period that we know. Every social need was responded
to by the guilds. There were old-age pensions, disability wages,
insurance against fire, accident at sea, burglary, highway robbery,
the destruction of crops, the death of animals and all the other
developments of mutual protection against the unexpected which we have
been inclined to think were developments of our time. There were
30,000 guilds in England, it is said, when they were suppressed by
Henry VIII, and the money in the treasuries, many millions of pounds,
confiscated on the plea that they were religious organizations. They
maintained grammar schools, had burses at the universities, arranged
for technical training and apprenticeships, cared for orphans,
provided entertainments for the people of the town, brought the
membership together in friendly meetings and banquets several times
each year, held athletic contests, encouraged social life and innocent
amusements in every way and represented an ever vital nucleus of
fraternal interest among men. Our chapter on this shows too how
seriously the moneyed men of the time took their duty of philanthropic
care for their townsmen by various institutions.
A period that did so much for social needs could scarcely be expected
to have neglected its hospitals and as a matter of fact some of the
most beautiful hospitals in the world were built in this period, and
everywhere that a hospital was built it was worthy of its purpose. The
hospitals of a later time, especially the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, were little better than jails and were eminently
unsuitable. At this time citizens, instead of thinking that anything
was good enough for the ailing poor, felt that the honor of the city
was concerned, and the hospital, being a municipal building, was
{xxxix} constructed with as much care for its beauty externally and
its utility internally as the famous town halls or churches of the
time. We know how well patients were cared for, since we have abundant
evidence of the clinical teaching of medicine at the bedside. Whenever
hospitals are well built and the attendant physician takes students
with him on his rounds, the best possible treatment of patients is
assured. They cared finely for the insane also and for the
weak-minded. The awful abuses in this regard that came in the
eighteenth century, and from which our own happier though far from
satisfactory conditions represent a reaction, were a lamentable,
almost incomprehensible degeneration from the magnificent work of the
earlier time.
The women of Columbus' Century are worthy in every way of a place
beside the men of their time. Those who in recent years have talked of
the nineteenth century as the first period in the world's history when
women secured an opportunity for the higher education forget amazingly
many phases of feminine education of the long ago. The University of
Salerno had its department of women's diseases in the charge of women
professors in the twelfth century. There were feminine professors at
the University of Bologna in the thirteenth century, and as a matter
of fact in no century since the twelfth has Italy been without
distinguished women professors at one or more of the Italian
universities.
Above all those who talk of feminine education as a recent evolution
must be strangely forgetful of the women of the Renaissance. In Italy,
in France, in Spain, in Germany, in England, there were long series of
distinguished women, some noted for their scholarship, some for their
artistic taste, some for their literary power, all of them for a fine
influence on the men of the time and an inspiration to what was best.
Much of the wonderful social history of the time is due to them, but
there is no department of intellectual or moral uplift in which their
names are not prominent. Vittoria Colonna, the D'Estes, the women of
the House of Medici, the Gonzagas in Italy, Queen Anne of Bretagne and
Marguerite of Navarre in France, Queen Isabella of Castile, Queen
Catherine of England, Margaret More, Mary Queen of Scots, Margaret of
Bourgogne, {xl} Lady Jane Grey, Queen Elizabeth--when was there ever
such a galaxy of learned women alive during the same hundred years?
Besides these known in secular literature there was St. Angela of
Merici, the great founder of the Ursulines; St. Catherine of Genoa,
the wonderful organizer of charity; St. Teresa, probably the greatest
intellectual woman who ever lived, and other women distinguished for
supreme qualities of mind and heart almost too numerous to mention.
The hardest chapters of the book to compress have been those on
Feminine Education and The Women of the Century. What they did to make
their homes beautiful and their home surroundings charming, how they
inspired the artists of the time, what they did to bring out the best
that was in them, this indeed makes a difficult story to tell in a few
pages. Their contributions to the intellectual treasure of mankind
were not very large and only two or three of them have a name that
will endure in literature and none of them in art, but what they
accomplished for the ethical progress of the race at a particularly
dangerous time when the study of pagan authors and of Grecian art had
relaxed the fibre of Christian morality, represents a triumph of
feminine accomplishment of which too much cannot be said in praise.
THE BOOK OF THE WORDS of the century forms the least important chapter
of the accomplishment of the time, and as compared with the arts and
the deeds its literature seems almost disappointing, yet it must not
be forgotten that this was the Age of Leo X, of which Saintsbury in
"The Earlier Renaissance," in his series of Periods of European
Literature, says, "Of few epochs is it more difficult to speak in
brief space than of this century." He adds that "the age of Leo X was
for no small length of time and under many changes of prevailing
literary taste extolled as one of the greatest ages of literature, as
perhaps the greatest age of modern literature." It fell from this high
estate about a century ago, but the reaction against it was, as always
is the case with reactions, exaggerated, and we are gradually growing
in the appreciation of the greatness of the literature of the time
again. We now know that there are very few periods that have
contributed so much that is really of enduring value to world
literature as this age of Leo X.
{xli}
The Latin literature alone of this century would be enough to assure
it a place as one of the wonderful productive periods in world
letters. The "Imitation of Christ" was not written during the century,
though its author seems to have put it into the ultimate form in which
we now know it about the beginning of our period. It was during this
time that it came to be recognized as a great source of consolation, a
marvellous study of the human heart in time of trial and of triumph
and the most influential book that had ever come from the hand of man.
We have gathered together a small sheaf of the tributes that have been
paid to it by some of the serious thinkers in all generations since,
but it would be easy to fill a volume with words of highest
commendation. In the Latin literature of this period also must be
counted Sir Thomas More's "Utopia," which has been read in every
generation that has taken its social problems seriously ever since,
and never more so than in our own time. It deserves a place in world
literature beside Plato's "Republic," and it is far ahead of any of
the attempts at the description of a socialized state made in our
time. For scholars at least Erasmus' writings represent an enduring
contribution to Latin literature of the classic type, a storehouse of
information with regard to the scholarship and also lack of
scholarship of the time. For those interested in mystical subjects St.
Ignatius' "Spiritual Exercises" is another of the Latin works of the
period which, though it can scarcely be classed as literature, for, as
we have said, Ignatius like Michelangelo wrote things rather than
words, must take its place amid Columbian letters of lasting value
since it is more used now than ever before.
There are not many surpassing works of vernacular literature from this
time, and yet Machiavelli's history represents the only contribution
to historical literature that takes a place in human interests beside
the immortal trio of classical historians, Herodotus, Thucydides and
Tacitus. Ariosto represents one of the favorite works of Italian
scholars, and as the Italians have been the most cultured people in
the world ever since, their critical judgment must be accepted as of
great value. In popular literature the Tales of Chivalry, the
Picaresque romances or tales of roguery and the almost endless {xlii}
number of Italian novels show how wide must have been the popular
reading of the time. In France Villon has always been a favorite for
all classes, and with Charles of Orleans he has been known by scholars
at least outside of France and thoroughly appreciated. French modes of
verse following the Italian came to influence the other countries of
Europe at this time and have never ceased to supply ideas for the form
of the less serious modes of poetry at least for all the generations
down to our own. The influence of Clement Marot, of Brantome and the
Pleiades was felt in every literature of Europe, and has not
completely disappeared even after the nearly four centuries that have
elapsed since their time.
The literature of the century contains besides the names of Rabelais
as well as Calvin in France, Baldassare Castiglione, Michelangelo,
Vasari, Politian, Bembo, Lorenzo de' Medici, Pico della Mirandola and
the learned ladies Vittoria Colonna, Margaret of Navarre, Lucretia
Tornabuoni, the mother of Lorenzo de Medici, as well as the great
scholars of the period in Italy. In Spain St. Teresa and the great
mystical writers were compensating for the triviality and worse of the
picaresque romances and the tales of chivalry. In Portugal the young
genius of Camoeens was nurtured, while in England Sir Thomas More was
laying the foundations of modern English prose, the great Morality
Plays, "Everyman" and the "Castle of Perseverance," were written, and
the first fruits of English dramatic literature in its more modern
form came in "Ralph Royster Doyster" and "Gammer Gurton's Needle." In
Germany the literary product of the vernacular was less significant,
but Luther's great popular hymns and his vernacular translation of the
Scriptures gave a vigorous birth to modern German verse and prose,
while Hans Sachs and the Minnesingers did as much for popular poetry.
Few periods can present a literature so rich in every country, so
varied, with so many enduring elements and with so much that remains
as the constant possession of scholars ever since. The literature of
the time may not equal its art or even its science, but no apologies
are needed for it.
In a word, then, the books of the arts, the deeds and the words of
Columbus' Century when read even a little carefully {xliii} show us a
marvellous period in which man's power of achievement was at its very
highest. Its art in every department has never been excelled and has
only been equalled by that of the Greeks, from whom, however, we
possess no painting worthy of the name. Its intellectual achievements
in scholarship and in science give it the leadership in education in
the modern world at least. What it accomplished for men in great works
of humanity represent a triumph of humanitarianism in the best sense
of that word, and present achievements worthy to be emulated by the
modern time. The book of its words is of less import, and yet there
are not more than two or three periods in the world's history that
have surpassed it and there are some modes of literature in which it
is unexcelled. In the midst of this century the discovery of America
instead of being a surprise cannot but seem the most natural thing in
the world. Everywhere men were doing things that for many centuries
men had been unable to do and they were achieving triumphs in every
form of human effort. Given the fact that there was a large
undiscovered portion of the world, it was more likely to be discovered
at this time than at any other time in the world's history. That is
the background of Columbus' Discovery of America, which anyone who
wants to understand its place must know.
{1}
BOOK I
THE BOOK OF THE ARTS
CHAPTER I
GREAT PAINTERS: RAPHAEL
Any attempt at proper consideration of the book of the arts of
Columbus' Century must begin with the three great names of Raphael,
Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. They are the greatest trio in the
history of art--all their names associated with a single city at the
beginning of their lives but deeply influencing the world of art
before the end of them. Of the three as a painter Raphael is
undoubtedly the greatest, though surely here, if anywhere in the
history of art, comparisons are odious. Each of these geniuses in his
own department of painting was supreme,--as a religious painter
Raphael, as a portrait painter Leonardo, as a great decorative artist
Michelangelo. Raphael rivals Leonardo, however, in the painting of
portraits and some of Leonardo's religious paintings are almost the
only ones worthy to be placed besides Raphael's great religious
visions. Michelangelo, however, could on occasion, as he showed in the
Sistine, prove a rival of either of them in this mode.
As is so true of the men of this time as a rule, all three of these
men were much more than painters. Raphael died at the early age of
thirty-seven, yet he reached distinction as an architect and as an
archaeologist, besides accomplishing his great painting. Leonardo
insisted on not being thought of as a painter, but as an engineer and
architect, though he has painted the greatest portrait ever made and
beat Michelangelo once in a competition in sculpture. Michelangelo
reached supremacy in all four of the greatest modes of art. He is a
painter second to none in all that he attempted, he is the {2}
greatest sculptor since the time of the Greeks, he is one of the
greatest architects of all time, yet with all this, by what might seem
almost an impossible achievement, he was one of the greatest of poets
and has written sonnets that only Dante and Shakespeare have equalled.
These men of Columbus' Century not only were never narrow specialists
but quite the contrary; they were extremely varied in their interests
and felt in contradiction to what seems the prevalent impression in
our time that such breadth of interest only increased their powers of
expression in anything that they attempted.
Of the three probably Raphael has had the widest popular influence.
His paintings have all unconsciously to most people colored and
visualized for them the Biblical scenes, especially of the New
Testament, and since his time painters have been greatly influenced by
his compositions. He has deeply affected all the world of art and as
for several centuries now some of his greatest works have been held
outside of Italy, they have been producing their effect and giving
artists the thought of how well deepest vision could be expressed.
This man, who by universal consent was the greatest painter that ever
lived, was about nine years old when Columbus discovered America.
According to tradition he died on his birthday at the age of
thirty-seven in 1520. In less than two decades of active artist life
he had painted a series of pictures that were a triumph even in that
glorious period of marvellous artistic accomplishment. They have been
the subject of loving study and affectionate admiration ever since.
Many of them have been the despair of the artists who came after him.
But Raphael is not an artists' artist in any exclusive sense of the
word. He is as popular an idol with those who confess to having no
critical knowledge of art as he is the hopeless model of those whose
lives are devoted to art.
{3}
[Illustration: RAPHAEL, DRAWING OF SLAUGHTER OF INNOCENTS
(tapestry, VATICAN)]
Unlike many a genius, though his family was poor his early years were
surrounded by conditions all favorable for the development of his
talents. Raphael is his baptismal name and his family name was Santi.
(The name Sanzio often attributed to him has no warrant in history.)
His father Giovanni Santi filled the post of art expert, so far as
that office was formally constituted at that time, to Duke Frederick,
{4} reigning Prince of Urbino, and it was here that Raphael was born.
The Duke was one of the most distinguished and perhaps the most
discriminating of the great Renaissance patrons of art as well as of
letters, and a series of well-known painters, among them Piero della
Francesca, Melozzo da Forli and Justus of Ghent, were in his service
at this time. Duke Frederick's interest in everything artistic had
made the capital of his little principality one of the most important
art centres of this time and his palace is still the Mecca for
visitors to Italy who are interested in the development of art, for it
possesses some of the great masterpieces of the Renaissance painters.
Raphael in his boyhood had in a more limited way almost as favorable
surroundings as Michelangelo enjoyed in Florence, but with his
father's favor of his studies instead of the opposition that this
Florentine contemporary encountered. Urbino was indeed almost as much
of a centre of intellectual influence and progress at this time as the
court of Lorenzo the Magnificent, at which Michelangelo was brought
up. It was at Urbino that Baldassare Castiglione wrote _"Il
Cortigiano,"_ the book of The Gentleman, the elegant setting forth of
what was represented by that term in the Renaissance period.
When Raphael was about eleven his father died, but fortunately the
maternal uncle under whose guardianship he passed was quite as
favorable to art as his father had been. Yielding to the wishes of the
boy he permitted him to enter the studio of Timoteo Viti, a pupil of
the artist Francia, who had lately returned from his studies in other
portions of Italy to take up his residence in his native country.
During the next few years Raphael devoted himself to that training in
drawing which was to mean so much for him. Just about a century ago a
sketchbook was found, now in the Academy of Venice, having been
purchased for the city, in which there are over a hundred pen-and-ink
drawings of various pictures copied by Raphael, and competent critics
declare that the masterly genius of the artist can already be
recognized in them.
Besides these he painted a series of pictures in Timoteo's studio.
Some of these have been preserved. Probably the best known is "St.
George and St. Michael," now in the Louvre, though the "Dream of the
Knight" in the National Gallery, {5} London, has been the admiration
of young folk particularly for many generations. There are some who
claim that the most charming of these early pictures painted at Urbino
is the "Three Graces of the Tribune of Chantilly."
[Illustration: RAPHAEL, DREAM OF THE KNIGHT]
After this Raphael studied for a time, probably for some four years,
with Perugino at Perugia. This period of his life is mainly
interesting from the fact that while he acquired Perugino's technique,
Raphael went far beyond his master, though for a time his development
was probably hindered rather than helped by that master's influence.
Only one of the paintings made at Perugia, "The Coronation of the
Virgin," painted for the Franciscans of that city, and now to be seen
in the Vatican, reveals as art critics declare the real genius of
Raphael shining through and above the qualities that he had borrowed
from his Perugian master.
After Raphael's years of fruitful student work in the Hill Country so
dear to students of Italian culture for its four periods of great art,
there came his Florentine period, which represents a new and wonderful
evolution of his artistic genius. Here, when he arrived in 1504,
Leonardo da Vinci in his productive forties and the young Michelangelo
in his revealing later twenties were at work at their famous
historical cartoons, and the atmosphere of the city was deeply imbued
with the Renaissance spirit. It is a little difficult now to think of
Raphael as merely a young struggling artist, making his living by
painting portraits for rather commonplace people, and executing his
earlier Madonnas for private oratories, partly from love of his work
but mainly because he needed the money, yet this constituted his
occupation. [Footnote 1]
[Footnote 1: As pointed out by Grimm in his "Life of Michelangelo" the
patrons of the Renaissance painters at the beginning of that period,
and indeed until after the climax of its development had been reached,
were either of the middle class or consisted of the religious orders
and ecclesiastical authorities intent on the decoration of churches.
The town folk ordered pictures for their homes or for the decoration
of churches. The artist was a craftsman, like the goldsmith or any
other. When artists became the favorites of princes and kings and
rulers, when they came to occupy positions at courts, it was not long
before decadence began. Lives at court were not calculated to bring
out what was best nor to encourage profound thinking nor provide the
leisure which is necessary for great art, and truth lost its
attraction in jealous rivalry and the desire to please a patron.]
His Madonnas soon made him famous. At the end of his first year in
Florence came one of his masterpieces, the "Madonna of the Grand
Duke," still to be seen at the Pitti. At this {6} time Raphael was
under the influence of the great Dominican painter Fra Bartolommeo,
though undoubtedly the specimens of Fra Angelico's work so frequent in
Florence had their power over him. The sweetness and mystical beauty
which, added to the human tenderness of his lovely mothers, make his
Madonnas so charming are the fruit of Raphael's studies in Florence.
Under the influence of the two Dominican painters such great pictures
as "La Belle Jardiniere," of the Louvre, the "Madonna of the
Goldfinch" now in the Uffizi, Florence, and the "Madonna of the
Meadow," one of the treasures of the Vienna collection, were produced.
Just before he left Florence he painted for Atlanta Baglioni an
"Entombment" which is his first attempt at an historic picture. The
critics declare that it was spoiled somewhat by overwork at it and
overanxiety to rival some of the great paintings of this kind from
Leonardo and Michelangelo which Raphael had so much admired. However
that may be, it is undoubtedly one of the world's greatest pictures,
especially when the age of the artist, twenty-five, is taken into
account. Just after he finished it he was summoned to Rome by that
discerning patron of genius Pope Julius II. His great opportunity had
arrived. Only a little more than ten years of life lay ahead of him,
but in that ten years the art of the world was to receive almost its
greatest treasures. In their "Italian Cities" the Blashfields have
told the story of his Roman career:--
"Raphael's conquest of his surroundings was almost magical: he
arrived a youth, well spoken of as to skill, yet by reputation
hardly even _par inter pares;_ in ten short years--how long if we
count them in art history--he died, having painted the Vatican, the
Farnesina, world-famous altar-pieces, having planned the restoration
of the entire _urbs_, having reconciled enemies and stimulated
friends, and having succeeded without being hated.
{7}
"He achieved this success by his great and manifold capacity, but,
most of all, because in art he was the greatest assimilator and
composer who ever lived. The two words are each other's complements;
he received impressions, and he put them together; his temperament
was exactly suited to this marvellous forcing house of Rome, for a
Roman school never really existed, it was simply the Tusco-Umbrian
school throned upon seven hills and growing grander and freer in the
contemplation of Antiquity.
"To this contemplation, Raphael brought not only a brilliant
endowment but an astonishing mental accumulation; the mild eyes of
the Uffizi portrait were piercing when they looked upon nature or
upon art, and behind them was an alembic in which the things that
entered through those eyes fused, precipitated, or crystallized as
he willed."
Pope Julius II, himself one of the great geniuses of history, with a
dream of a united Italy long before there was any possibility of its
accomplishment, and with an appreciation of genius that alone would
have given him a commanding place among the world's great rulers, had
summoned to Rome for the decoration of the apartments of the Vatican
some of the greatest painters of the time. Even from distant Flanders
came Reuisch and then there were Perugino, Raphael's old master, now
advanced in years, and Signorelli, quite as old, and Lotto and Sodoma
and Peruzzi and others. It was beside these that Raphael had to do his
work. Within a year of Raphael's coming he, the youngest of them all,
not yet twenty-six years of age, was selected by the Pope--how well
advised he was--as the one to whom all the important decorations
should be entrusted. Then came the opportunity to do the Camera della
Segnatura, that triumph of decorative art. "This chamber of the
Vatican" became, as Raphael's biographer in the Catholic Encyclopaedia
says, "a sort of mirror of the tendencies of the human mind, a summary
of all its ideal history, a sort of pantheon of spiritual grandeurs.
Thereby the representation of ideas acquired a dramatic value, being
no longer as in the Middle Ages the immovable exposition of an
unchangeable truth but the impassioned search for knowledge in all its
branches, the moral life of humanity."
{8}
His decorations of the Camera de la Segnatura are probably among the
greatest contributions to decorative art ever made. They are certainly
among the most interesting. Only Michelangelo's wonderful decorations
in the Sistine Chapel rival them and there are some critics who would
concede the palm to Raphael. Here we have the index not only of his
power to paint marvellously but also of his intellectual genius and
his judgment of values in the history of literature and philosophy.
Such pictures as the "Disputa" and the "School of Athens" are real
contributions to the history of human thought. Only a man who was
himself of profound intellectuality on a plane of equality with the
great intellectual geniuses whom he was painting could have conceived
and completed these magnificent groups of the world's greatest men
successfully. It has been well said that to appreciate properly the
pictures of the Segnatura is of itself an education. To be able to
take them in their full significance as essays in art and in the
history of literature and philosophy is to have gone far on the road
to culture. Raphael's achievement here is that of a great mind gifted
with a wonderful power of comprehension as well as an almost
unrivalled faculty of expression. No decorative pictures of the modern
time, however great, can be placed beside them.
It has often been a source of wonder how Raphael was able to paint so
appropriately the figures of Plato, Socrates, Aristotle and others in
his great picture of the "School of Athens." Only the genius that
gives men intuition, that enabled Shakespeare to portray wonderfully
the character of the men of all times and the blind Homer to give us
an enduring picture of man could have enabled him to do it. It was the
time of the New Learning and the recently aroused interest in the
classics, but no mere accumulation of information would ever have made
him capable of such a representation. As Gladstone once said of Homer,
a whole encyclopaedia of information with regard to the Greeks of
Homer's time would not have told us as much about them as Homer has
given us. At the time when he did the painting Raphael was not much
more than thirty and his life had been occupied with painting and not
with the accumulation of erudition. Henry Strachey in {9} his sketch
of Raphael calls attention to the fact that none of the great
contemporary Italian humanists were in Rome at this time. Neither
Bembo nor Bibbiena nor Castiglione were where they might be readily
consulted, and it was only Raphael's genius insight that enabled him
to accomplish so wonderfully the task he had been set. For while the
subjects were probably chosen for him he had to work out the details
for himself, and indeed these wonderful compositions show this very
clearly.
[Illustration: Raphael, School of Athens]
Raphael revealed for us in the "Camera della Segnatura," as almost no
one else has done, the attitude of mind of his period with regard to
the meaning of life. Years of scholarly devotion to the study of pagan
antiquity and especially the great Greek philosophers and poets, as
well as the remains of its sculpture, had awakened in men's minds a
broader view of life and its significance than had been possible for
centuries. Raphael has summed this up in the wonderful documents that
he has left in the Vatican and put on canvas what the great scholars
of the time tried to express in words. The late Professor Kraus of
Munich in his chapter on Medicean Rome in the second volume of the
Cambridge modern History has told the story of this:
"The four pictures of the camera represent the aspirations of the
soul of man in each of its faculties; the striving of all humanity
towards God by means of aesthetic perception (Parnassus), the
explanation of reason in philosophical inquiry and all scientific
research (the _School of Athens_), order in Church and State (_Gift
of Ecclesiastical and Secular Laws_) and finally Theology. The whole
may be summed up as a pictorial representation of Pico della
Mirandola's celebrated phrase, _philosophia veritatem quaerit,
theologia invenit, religio possidet;_ and it corresponds with what
Marsilio says in his _Academy of Noble Minds_ when he characterized
our life's work as an ascent to the angels and to God."
Artists and poets and writers have vied with each other in saying
strong words of high praise with regard to these decorations. The
Blashfields in their "Italian Cities" have told the story of the
limitations under which he worked, those of the room, lighted from two
sides with two walls pierced by {10} windows, and then the fact that
to a great extent probably his subjects were dictated, yet he must
needs body them forth in concrete form and clearly. How well the young
artist not only overcame these difficulties but out of the very
difficulties created the most marvellous portions of his masterpieces
the Blashfields have also told.
In one paragraph they have detailed the story of Raphael's
associations with the artists of Rome at that period. Because it gives
some idea of the wealth of artistic genius existent in this time it
concerns us deeply here. They say: "The Urbinate (Raphael) strong as
he was, had felt the need of strengthening himself still further by
acquiring the friendship of other artists, and creating a kind of
little court. We are told that almost nightly at his table there met,
Luca Signorelli, Pietro Perugino, Baldassare Peruzzi, Giovanantonio
Bazzi and Lorenzo Lotto. What an age! when a single supper party could
furnish such an assemblage of world-famous artists, who in turn, as
they went from their quarters in the Borgo Vecchio, might meet
Michelangelo returning from the Vatican with the contingent of
Florentines, Bugiardini, Granacci, Aristotile da Sangallo, and
l'Indaco, who were helping him in the Sistine Chapel."
So much has been said of the Camera della Segnatura that it is
sometimes forgotten that there are other rooms at the Vatican
decorated by Raphael, only less wonderful than this. If they existed
anywhere else they would be prized very highly, and if they were by
any other artist would place him among the great artists of all time.
The Camera del Incendio, so called because of the representation of
"The Fire in the Borgo," has in this scene one of the most dramatic
pictures ever painted. There are other great dramatic subjects finely
treated here, as "The Oath of Leo III" and the "Coronation of
Charlemagne." In this work Raphael was probably assisted to a
noteworthy extent by pupils and associates, yet all of it is stamped
with his genius. There are in the Camera del Eliodoro such pictures as
"Jacob's Dream," the "Sacrifice of Isaac" and the "Burning Bush,"
which show Raphael's wonderful power of composition and at the same
time the readiness of genius which enabled him to turn from one
subject to another, accomplishing {11} so much that one is astounded
to think of how ideas must have crowded on him and yet how well all is
done considering that the artist so often needs above all the element
of time to perfect his work. Had Raphael been spared to the ordinary
length of life or to such years as Michelangelo's four score and ten
or Titian's almost five score, what an abundance of his art there
would be in the world.
One of Raphael's greatest works at Rome is comparatively little
appreciated except by those whose attention has been particularly
called to it. This was his making of the cartoons for the series of
tapestries to be hung in the Sistine Chapel. These tapestries were to
be manufactured in the Low Countries, but the Pope wanted the subjects
that were to be represented to come from Raphael. Raphael consented to
make the cartoons for them, though he knew that they would be cut into
rolls some two inches wide to be handed over to the weavers. He had no
idea that they would ever be exhibited except in the imperfect way in
which tapestry can represent painting. Most artists of high rank would
probably refuse such a commission. Certainly it seemed rather
derogatory to his dignity as an artist to think that he should furnish
only copies that were themselves to have no place among his collected
works and prove at most a dubious addition to his fame. Under these
circumstances it would not have been surprising if the composition and
the manner of execution of the cartoons had been far below that of his
works in painting and fresco.
He gave himself to the commission, however, whole-heartedly and
executed a series of designs that are among the greatest compositions
that have ever come from an artist's hand. These cartoons, after
having been copied in tapestry, lay in the narrow rolls into which
they had been slit in the tapestry factory in the Low Countries until,
resurrected almost in our own time, they became the most precious
treasures of the South Kensington Museum in London. Here they have
been the favorite study of artists from all countries and have added
laurels to Raphael's crown of artistic glory. He had the artist's true
sense of joy in work and the artistic conscience to satisfy the canons
of his own judgment and taste, even in a task that was to represent
him only at second hand. Almost {12} never in history has the great
artist consented thus to make himself subsidiary to the artisan, and
that Raphael, the greatest of artists, should have done it shows the
genuine spirit of true art as developed at this time.
Some of these cartoons, as "St. Paul Preaching to the Athenians," are
considered among Raphael's greatest works. Raphael has well been
called the greatest decorator who ever lived, yet he consented to add
his mite to the decoration of the Sistine Chapel, in which
Michelangelo's triumphant work stood out so grandly above, in order
that the hangings on the walls might be worthy of that wonderful
chapel that a great Pope had planned and had had the happy faculty of
securing the greatest men of all time as collaborators in finishing.
Perhaps nothing shows the wonderful artistic power and influence of
Raphael more than the fact that his compositions have dictated
practically all the interpretation of Bible scenes for the after time.
Quite unconsciously men have adopted his way of looking at things. He
did not costume Biblical characters in the clothes of his own time,
but on the other hand, in spite of his wide knowledge as an
archaeologist, he did not attempt to make his pictures true to the
genuine life of the times and the costuming of the older period. The
set of cartoons particularly illustrate how well he visualized the
scenes and yet the Apostles are dressed in garments that they never
wore. As I write there is before me an engraving of Paul preaching to
the Athenians. That Unknown God whom they had worshipped he is come to
preach to them. It is a wonderful composition. Probably nothing has
ever excelled it. There is probably not a single feature in it,
however, that in any way represents what is true to history in the
scene or the people. After his time for centuries his visualization
satisfied people's minds, so much is genius able to impose itself on
humanity.
The Sistine Madonna, the only picture of Raphael's painted on canvas,
is usually considered to be the greatest religious painting that ever
was executed and one of the most wonderful realizations of vivid
poetic imagination that the world possesses. Everything in it is full
of sublime suggestion. The majestic attitude of the Madonna posed upon
the clouds, her face of perfect beauty, her far-away gaze of rapt
veneration {13} and absorption in her motherhood, but motherhood of
the Divine, proclaim her a vision from Heaven. No more wonderful
conception of the human mother of the Divinity has ever been reached
and yet critics and artists are a unit in proclaiming that the Virgin
Mother is surpassed in wondrous realization of profound imagination by
the Divine Child Whom she holds so tenderly in her arms. He looks out
into the world from those arms with solemn sacred eyes that somehow
give the idea of His profound interest in all that He sees and of an
all-embracing vision. Then there is the rugged, bearded Pope Sixtus
gazing upward with rapt devotion and the graceful, beautiful Saint
Barbara adequately representative of the modest virgins who all over
the world, for all the time since the coming of Christ, modestly cast
their eyes down before the Virgin Mother and her child. Below are the
two exquisite boy angels, whose charming childish attitudes of rapture
have always roused so much interest.
It is said that these were the portraits of two little boys who came
to gaze, boy fashion, curiously into the window of the studio while
Raphael was painting. His transformation of the mischievous,
inquisitive, supremely boyish faces into the look of angelic rapture
is one of the triumphs of the picture that have always made it of the
greatest interest. Painted originally for an Italian Church it is now
the treasure of the gallery of Dresden, where it occupies a room by
itself that is more like a shrine to which devout worshippers come
from all over the world and in which as in some sacred place the
visitor distinctly lowers his voice and walks on tiptoe. Nothing tells
more of what the picture means than to watch the crowds that come from
all over the world to see it and the way in which it is almost
worshipped by those whose opinion is worth the most.
After the Sistine Madonna, unfortunately for art, Raphael's attention
was drawn more and more from its special sphere of work as a painter
and his time was taken up and his attention absorbed by the larger,
wider pursuits of art director and archaeologist. This would not have
been so sad perhaps only for the brevity of the life destined to be
his. Had he lived to three score and ten the ten years devoted to
these {14} phases of art work, as they may well be called, would
probably have proved beneficial to his development. As it was we are
likely to think of it as time wasted by a great genius painter. His
art directorship proves the genius of the man. His workshop at Rome
gradually took on the character of a school of art. In this designs
were prepared not only for fresco but for mosaic work, for tapestry,
for the carving of wood and stone and even for engraving and other
phases of art. Vasari mentions fifty scholars who were employed as
pupils and assistants in this workshop. In the meantime Raphael's
interest in art history and his passion for classical art led him to
dispatch artists to Naples and Athens, to make drawings of noteworthy
antiquities that had been discovered. His manifold interests serve to
show how broad were his own sympathies with everything artistic.
Towards the end of his life, though Raphael at thirty-five had no idea
that death was impending, he devoted himself to the study of Roman
antiquities and to the direction of the archaeological excavations
which were then being carried on in Rome. He had conceived the design
of reconstructing an entire plan of ancient Rome, based partly on the
discoveries of the excavators and partly on the descriptions of
classical writers. For this he made numerous plans and sketches with
his own hand, and though these have unfortunately perished, there is
in the Library at Munich a copy of the report which he drew up on this
subject. It is in the form of a Latin letter to Pope Leo X, showing
how deeply the Pope was interested in the scheme and that very
probably it was due to his urging that Raphael took it up. This letter
has been declared a monument to the industry and the archaeological
learning of the artist. Ordinarily in the modern time we are likely to
think that the artist devotes himself to his painting and leaves to
the professional scholar such work as this. We do not look for
many-sidedness in the artist. Raphael, however, like Leonardo da Vinci
and Michelangelo, evidently had a magnificent breadth of intellect
that would have given the most precious fruits of the spirit in many
lines besides painting, had he only lived to anything like the years
of so many of his great contemporaries.
[Illustration: RAPHAEL, POETRY (MOSAIC, VATICAN)]
{15}
CHAPTER II
LEONARDO DA VINCI
When it was announced that the "Mona Lisa" had been stolen from the
Louvre a thrill of solicitude that was almost dismay went through the
civilized world. Its recovery has been a triumph. It is only a woman's
portrait, herself of no importance, with what some might call a
conventional landscape behind it, all on a comparatively small canvas,
with its colors rather dimmed by time and by unfortunate surroundings
during its somewhat over four hundred years of existence, yet it was
looked upon as one of the most precious art treasures of the race.
Critics with a right to an opinion have often declared that it was
probably the greatest portrait of a human being that had ever been
painted. When we recall how magnificently Rembrandt portrayed the
Dutch burghers of his time, with what marvellous expression Raphael
painted some of the personages he knew and how wondrously Velasquez
painted some of his contemporaries; the placing of Leonardo's "Mona
Lisa" above them by good critics shows what a supreme place must be
accorded to it in the history of art. Art critics have expressed
themselves in almost unmeasured terms as to the significance of the
expression on the face of the "Mona Lisa." They do not hesitate to
proclaim that Leonardo painted the very soul and not merely the bodily
features of a woman. Walter Pater in his "The Renaissance" has written
an almost dithyrambic description of it that is well known and yet
deserves to be quoted again if only to show how a really great critic
can be carried away by a favorite work of art:--
"'La Gioconda' is, in the truest sense, Leonardo's masterpiece, the
revealing instance of his mode of thought and work. In
suggestiveness, only the 'Melancholia' of Duerer is comparable to it;
and no crude symbolism disturbs the effect of its subdued and
graceful mystery. We all know the face {16} and hands of the figure,
set in its marble chair, in that cirque of fantastic rocks, as in
some faint light under sea. Perhaps of all ancient pictures time has
chilled it least.
"The presence that thus rose so strangely beside the waters, is
expressive of what in the ways of a thousand years man had come to
desire. Here is the head upon which all 'the ends of the world are
come,' and the eyelids are a little weary. It is a beauty wrought
out from within upon the flesh, the deposit, little cell by cell, of
strange thoughts and fantastic reveries and exquisite passions. Set
it for a moment beside one of those white Greek goddesses or
beautiful women of antiquity, and how would they be troubled by this
beauty, into which the soul with all its maladies has passed? All
the thoughts and experience of the world have etched and moulded
there, in that which they have of power to refine and make
expressive the outward form, the animalism of Greece, the lust of
Rome, the reverie of the middle age with its spiritual ambition and
imaginative loves, the return of the Pagan world, the sins of the
Borgias. She is older than the rocks among which she sits; like the
vampire, she has been dead many times, and learned the secrets of
the grave; and has been a diver in deep seas, and keeps their fallen
day about her; and trafficked for strange webs with Eastern
merchants; and, as Leda, was the mother of Helen of Troy, and, as
Saint Anne, the mother of Mary; and all this has been to her but as
the sound of lyres and flutes, and lives only in the delicacy with
which it has moulded the changing lineaments, and tinged the eyelids
and the hands."
While the "Mona Lisa" was undoubtedly the greatest of Leonardo's
portraits, perhaps the best possible idea of Leonardo's power as an
artist is to be found in the "Last Supper." Instead of making a placid
group he has chosen the moment just after the Lord had said that one
of the Twelve will betray Him and when all are asking "Is it I, Lord?"
He represents not only the individual shock but also the natural
grouping that occurred as a consequence of the announcement There are
four groups of three each, separate and with very distinct interest
and yet they are so arranged as not to break the unity of the picture.
On the left side the outer three {17} are all intently gazing on the
Lord while the external group on the other side are gazing away from
Him, but their hands all point towards Him. The inner three on the
right are talking directly to Him while the corresponding three on the
left are occupied among themselves and yet evidently intent on Him.
There was probably never put together a more expressive set of faces.
Each one is eminently individual, and each one shows marvellously the
character of the Apostle represented. It has been said that it is as
if the painter had made a condensed biography of each one of them with
his brush. All the special characteristics of the different Apostles
that we know are here to be seen in their faces. He has painted the
souls and characters of the men in the imaginary portraits that he
makes.
There is an old tradition mentioned by Vasari, that charming gatherer
of legends with regard to the old painters, that Leonardo, unable to
satisfy himself with the head and face of Jesus, left it unfinished.
This would indeed have been a sad loss to art. Leonardo hesitated for
long, wondering above all whether he should follow a model, but
finally made his peace with tradition, accepted the type of head for
the Lord that had been created by Giotto, and refining it still more
succeeded in giving a look of mystic superhumanity to it that would
evoke the idea of divinity. It is easy to see how much he borrowed but
it is harder to realize how much he added, yet artists who have
studied it have felt that here indeed was a triumph and that, as far
as possible, Leonardo had represented the human face divine. He
followed his model strictly in the case of the Apostles' heads and
none knew better than he how to select models, but in the head of
Christ he turns from the model and works out his design from ideals of
the human face of which so many existed in his well-stored fancy. The
face of Christ was left somewhat vague, trembling, undissolved like
faces seen in cloud or in the fire. Leonardo himself once counselled
his students to look for suggestions in curious cloud and fire shapes
and even to study the vague forms that occur in imitation of human
faces on cracked and stained surfaces of ruined walls, and some of his
own devotion to this seems to have been of help to him in this
marvellous face.
{18}
Much has been said about the head of Judas in this picture. According
to Vasari, Leonardo fairly outdid himself on this face and head and he
talks about "the force and truth with which the master has exhibited
the imperious determination, hatred and treachery of Judas." According
to another legend he had haunted the purlieus of Florence for months,
searching for a head and face expressive enough in its malignity for
his Judas. Possibly one might expect to find a human monster then in
the Apostle traitor. In spite of Vasari's traditions, who here seems
to have indulged his fancy for the sensational, Judas has a very
interesting human face, rather weak than strong, but with redeeming
qualities in it. After all it must not be forgotten that the face had
to recall or at least not negative the fact that this man had been for
three years in the company of the Lord, chosen as one of the Twelve,
with possibilities of as great accomplishment for good as the others
if he had not turned aside. Judas was not foreordained to be a
traitor, but he made himself such. It was not his nature that
compelled him to the crime, but his failure to control certain
elemental passions, above all the craving for money, that led him into
it. Many a good man since has been led off the same way. We have the
face of a man who might have been one of the honored Apostles. That he
was not is his own fault. It is said that the same model was used by
Leonardo for Peter and Judas. If so, surely it was a stroke of genius.
Peter too was weak. He even denied the Master, but had it in him to
realize his weakness and repent. Peter's face is in the light, Judas'
face in the shadow of Leonardo's picture. If Leonardo had not given
Judas the bag to carry, thrown his face out of the line of the
Apostles near him who are in the light, and made him ominously upset
the salt while reaching for a better quality of bread than that near
him, it would have been rather difficult to pick him out from among
the others.
One thing is absolutely true in this great work of art. All the faces
of the Apostles, with the possible exception of John's, are rudely
strong. The men who were to carry on the work of the Master and
convert the world to Christianity were not effeminate in any sense,
and above all they had been the rough {19} fishermen of Galilee. Their
costumes are modernized, their beards are probably less unkempt than
if they were really Judeans, but here is a group of men whose very
strength of feature makes them striking.
As has been well said, Leonardo broke up the old formality and
immobility of the earlier painters and brought life and action into
the scene. For the first time the personages are deprived of their
halos and there is nothing to make the group of men anything more than
human beings deeply interested in a great purpose and disturbed to the
depths of their beings by the suggestion from the Master Himself that
now that purpose was to be thwarted by the treason of one of their
number. This conception seems all the more natural when we recall that
none of them had as yet been confirmed in grace, that one was to deny,
another betray and all were to be hesitant and cowardly in a great
moment of trial.
With all this of thought in Leonardo's picture it might be expected
that all of his attention would be given to the faces and little to
the composition itself and to the setting of the picture. The exact
contrary is what happens. The composition is probably the most
wonderful ever done. The room itself is so arranged that everything
leads the eye toward the centre of the picture where the Master sits,
while behind Him the middle one of three windows, with an arched
casement, frames Him apart from the Apostles. Through these three
windows at the back can be seen one of the varied mountainous
landscapes that Leonardo delighted in. The extent of the landscape
which can be seen shows that the supper was held in an "upper room."
The bare beams of the ceiling in that coffered arrangement common in
Italy, the walls ornamented with large panel spaces filled in with a
damasked pattern are all worked over with artistic completeness of
detail. It is details of this kind one might expect the painter of the
Last Supper to have overlooked in his intentness on the sublime moment
and the characters. The tablecloth, moreover, is beautifully worked
and the linen and the pattern of it and the folds are done with as
meticulous care as one might expect from a _genre_ painter of tissues.
The glasses and table service are very carefully drawn and every
detail was executed with {20} an artistic conscience and eye to
perfection, even of trifles, that reveals the thoroughness and
all-embracing skill of the artist.
The more one knows of Leonardo's power to paint detail and of his
devoted study of nature, the less surprise is there at the traditions
with regard to his head of Medusa. It was much for an artist to
attempt to make a picture of this hideous head on which were the
writhing serpents, the sight of which, according to tradition, turned
beholders to stone, but he has succeeded in accomplishing a
presentation of the horrible as far as it is possible. The writhing
serpents are done with a devotion to detail and a lifelike naturalness
that only a great observer of nature could have reached. Besides the
serpents in all their varieties there are bats and lizards and vermin
of many kinds in the picture, while the cloudy mephitic breath which
can be seen issuing from the mouth completes the picture. The intense
realism of these details of low animal life is a surprise at that
period, but above all a surprise that it should have been done by a
man who had such wonderful power of idealization when he wished to use
it. It is this combination of qualities so opposite in themselves and
often thought mutually exclusive that makes the never-ending surprise
of Leonardo's genius. That the painter of the "Last Supper" and the
charming "Madonna of the Rocks" should have also made this "Head of
Medusa" is indeed difficult to understand, and yet not more than might
be expected from one of the greatest of the artists of the Renaissance
who is at the same time almost the world's most manifold genius.
[Illustration: LEONARDO DA VINCI, MADONNA OF THE ROCKS (LONDON)]
With all this of magnificent accomplishment in painting, which sets
him on a pinnacle by himself in this great department of art, it might
be thought that Leonardo's main claim to recognition was because of
his painting. He himself, however, would have been the first to object
to estimation of him on any such grounds. He probably scarcely
considered himself to be a painter at all, or at least occupied
himself with painting only in his leisure moments. He beat
Michelangelo once in a competition in sculpture, but doubtless thought
less of himself as a sculptor than as a painter. He made what his
generation declared to be the greatest equestrian statue {21} ever
modelled and his generation knew what they meant by that, for they had
before them two such triumphs of equestrian statuary as Donatello's
"Gatamelata" and Verrocchio's "Colleoni." Just as in painting, when he
wanted to do sculpture he could do it with a supreme perfection that
is unrivalled. Strange as it may seem, Leonardo thought of himself as
an engineer. He actually took on himself the contract for extending
the canal system around Milan and accomplished it so well that his
work still remains in use. During the course of this he invented the
wheelbarrow, the movable derrick, the self-dumping derrick, various
modes of moving rock, locks for canals and a system for maintaining a
navigable level of water in rivers which were usually nearly dry in
the summer time.
Leonardo had the thorough appreciation of himself that genius is so
likely to have and that in smaller men seems conceit. He knew that
there was practically nothing to which he cared to turn his hand in
which he could not work out original ideas. He was only in his middle
twenties when he wrote the letter to Ludovico Sforza in which he tells
his future patron very calmly all the things he might be expected to
do if the Duke should have need of them.
"MOST ILLUSTRIOUS LORD.--Having studied and estimated the works of
the present inventors of warlike engines, I have found that in them
there is nothing novel to distinguish them. I therefore force myself
to address your Excellency that I may disclose to you the secrets of
my art. 1. I have a method of bridges, very light and very strong;
easy of transport and incombustible. 2. New means of destroying any
fortress or castle (which hath not foundations hewn of solid rock)
without the employment of bombards. 3. Of making mines and passages,
immediately and noiselessly, under ditches and streams. 4. I have
designed irresistible protected chariots for the carrying of
artillery against the enemy. 5. I can construct bombards, cannon,
mortars, passavolanti; all new and very beautiful. 6. Likewise
battering rams, machines for the casting of projectiles, and other
astounding engines. 7. For sea combats I have contrivances both
offensive and defensive; ships whose sides would repel stone and
iron balls, and explosives, unknown to any soul. 8. In {22} days of
peace, I should hope to satisfy your Excellency in architecture, in
the erection of public and private buildings, in the construction of
canals and aqueducts. I am acquainted with the arts of sculpture and
painting, and can execute orders in marble, metal, clay or in
painting with oil, as well as any artist. And I can undertake that
equestrian statue cast in bronze, which shall eternally glorify the
blessed memory of your lordship's father and of the illustrious
house of Sforza.
"And if any of the above seem extravagant or beyond the reach of
possibility, I offer myself prepared to make experiment in your
park; or in whatsoever place it may please your Excellency to
appoint; to whose gracious attention I most humbly recommend
myself."
Was there ever a more confident genius? There was never a man who
fulfilled all his promises better.
What Leonardo was able to accomplish as an engineer can be seen in the
canal some 200 miles in length still in existence by which he
conducted the waters of the Adda over the arduous passes of the
Valtellina to the gates of Milan. In its own way and considering the
conditions under which he had to work and the obstacles that he had to
overcome, this was as great an engineering feat as the digging of the
Panama Canal, certainly a much greater engineering project than the
completion of the Suez Canal, though until Panama came to shroud the
glory of that our generation was inclined to be rather proud of that
achievement.
So far from being merely an artistic mind Leonardo da Vinci had
typically the scientific and inquiring mind. Whenever a scientific
problem came up to him, no matter how others had solved it before him
and above all no matter how his contemporaries were solving it, he
solved it for himself and almost inevitably in the true light of
science. For instance while he was engineer, in charge, to use our
modern term, of the canals of central Italy, the cuttings necessary
for them brought to light a series of fossils. These were mainly
shells resembling the seashells of his time, though not exactly like
them. Before this a number of such finds had been made and man had
found it very hard to explain them. They were usually {23} uncovered
beneath a rather thick layer of earth. They looked like shells that
belonged to creatures that had lived on a seashore. How could their
presence be explained far from the sea and completely covered up?
Occasionally, when found near the surface on the tops of rather high
mountains a distance from the sea, the explanation had been offered
and generally accepted that they had been deposited there by the
Deluge. The buried shells and especially those deeply buried could not
be thus explained. Scientists, and let us not forget that it was
scientists in the true sense of the term who were especially concerned
with such objects, men who knew their mathematics and principles of
science very well and who had made valuable observations in other
departments of science, evolved a learned theory of their presence.
These were incomplete beings occurring in the earth because of a
surplusage of creative power that had not quite finished its work.
Their development had been arrested as it were before they actually
became living creatures. When Leonardo da Vinci ran across the shells
in the cuttings for his canals, he suggested another and a simpler
explanation as it seemed to him. These were actually marine shellfish,
which had been deposited where they now were at a time when this
portion of land was submerged by the sea. They had become covered
during the process of sedimentation and transformation of the land
which had gradually pushed the sea far away. It always requires a
genius to offer so simple an explanation as that, and as a rule it
seems quite out of the question to most of his contemporaries, because
of its very simplicity. They usually express their disdain for such
simple-mindedness or wrong-headedness rather forcibly, though after a
time they come to accept the explanation of it, but usually refuse to
give the inventor any credit for his idea, because it now seems so
obvious that they cannot think of it as so very new, after all.
We know that Leonardo had made a series of studies of the shells of
the seashore, though ordinarily it was presumed that his studies had
been directed rather to their artistic beauty than to scientific
knowledge with regard to them. Apparently his very familiarity with
them, however, led him to lay the foundation stone of the science of
palaeontology. There are {24} sketches of a number of the spiral
shells to be found in his notebooks. These are all charming in their
pretty curves, and they caught his artistic eye. Nature never makes
anything merely useful. This strong outwardly rude cover of shell for
the amorphous ugly shellfish--that is, ugly according to most human
standards--is very pretty in its forms and its color. The fine use
that Leonardo made of his study in seashells was pointed out by
someone who studied some of the spiral staircases for the corners of
palaces in Northern Italy which Leonardo is said to have planned.
These were only private stairways leading usually from the ladies'
apartments to the gardens of the castles and were probably designed to
be useful as fire escapes. They projected sometimes from the angles of
the building. We know what hideous things fire escapes can be. These
were very pretty and effectively decorative. They were planned in
imitation of the spirals of some of the whorl seashells that Leonardo
had been studying.
Everywhere we find that mixture of the devotion to the useful and the
practical as well as the aesthetic, to the scientific as well as the
artistic. He made a series of dissections. These dissections were made
at a time when, if we would believe certain of our modern historians
of science in its relation to religion, the Church had absolutely
forbidden dissection. Such declarations are all the more
incomprehensible because not only did all the anatomists and surgeons
of this century do dissection quite freely, and the greatest
dissections were done in Rome by the Papal Physicians in the Papal
Medical School, but every artist of the time studied anatomy for art
purposes through dissections. We have dissections from Raphael and
from Michelangelo and from many others as well as from Leonardo da
Vinci.
Leonardo proposed after making a large number of dissections to write
a text-book of anatomy. Ordinarily it might seem that such a text-book
from an artist's hands would be eminently superficial and not at all
likely to further the science of anatomy, though it might be helpful
for students of art, especially in their dissection work. During the
past twenty years, however, a series of Leonardo's sketches made from
his dissections have been republished from a number of {25}
collections of the originals in important libraries in Europe. The
collection at Windsor Castle in England is particularly valuable and
the sketches are very complete. Anyone who looks over these
republications will realize at once that had Leonardo written his
text-book of anatomy and illustrated it with his own drawings, it
would have been an epoch-making landmark in the history of anatomy and
of medicine.
It was not until a quarter of a century after the artist's death that
Vesalius, but five years old when Leonardo died, published his great
anatomical text-book. At the time Vesalius was only twenty-seven years
of age, but his work revolutionized anatomy and he is rightly greeted
as the father of modern anatomy. Had Vesalius had the opportunity to
consult Leonardo's work, his own would have been greatly facilitated.
It was not merely anatomy for art purposes but for all purposes,
scientific as well as artistic, that Leonardo with characteristic
thoroughness had studied.
There are studies of his in zoology, made evidently for the sake of
his work in sculpture, that represent important additions to this
scientific department. The same thing is true with regard to botany.
Flowers caught his artistic eye, but they appealed quite as much to
the scientific sense and so we find sketches of many varieties of them
that are very interesting but also very startling from a scientific
standpoint because they show a knowledge of the parts of the flowers
in detail not usually supposed to exist at that time. One is not
surprised to hear that he did distinguished work in mathematics.
Somehow the exact scientific bent of his mind and its literalness in
all matters pertaining to science would lead us to expect that. There
probably never has been a mind so thoroughly rounded out as his.
Aristotle had greater scientific precision and wider knowledge, but
lacked something at least of Leonardo's power to execute his artistic
ideas, or we would surely have some great art from him or traditions
of it. It is even not startling, with this knowledge of the scientific
side of Leonardo's mind, to find that he advanced a theory of
evolution. That generalization far from being new, as is often
imagined, has appealed to many great investigating minds down the
centuries, according to the title of a modern {26} scientist's history
of the theory all the way "From the Greeks to Darwin."
One of the most interesting anticipations of a set of ideas that are
definitely considered quite modern, and indeed have developed so
recently that we are not quite sure of all their significance as yet,
is Leonardo da Vinci's occupation with muscular movements and the
saving of time and labor by carefully regulating these movements. He
suggested that each different kind of work done by human muscular
labor should be carefully studied, with the idea of simplifying and
reducing the number of movements necessary for its accomplishment in
order to save both time and effort. In a word he anticipated
practically the modern ideas of the efficiency engineer of the present
time though, as I have said, we are rather prone to think these ideas
quite new and recent.
The personality of this universal genius is one of the most
interesting that mankind has to study. Every detail is of special
import. Leonardo da Vinci was born of the noble Florentine house of
Vinci in the Val d'Arno. He was a precocious child, attracting
attention by his beauty of feature and by his winning ways. There are
stories of his improvising music and songs even when he was very
young. A little later we hear of him pitying the caged songbirds and
buying them and setting them free. As a growing boy he liked colors;
indeed, they may almost be said to have had a fascination for him, and
the bright dresses of the Florentine girls and of the peasants from
the vicinity caught his eye. Tradition also connects him with a fancy
for spirited horses. As if these were not enough to show an artistic
temperament, while still scarcely more than a boy he began to design
and sketch and even mould objects that he was interested in. Vasari's
stories of him show that even at this early date, when he was only a
boy, his sketches and plastic work had for subjects smiling women.
His vocation seemed clear and his father took him for education to the
workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio, then the greatest artist in
Florence and one whose work has always maintained an influence over
succeeding generations. Those of us who have seen his "Colleoni" in
Venice are likely to think {27} of him as a great sculptor.
Undoubtedly he was one of the great sculptors of the world, but he had
the broad artistic spirit of the men of the Renaissance, and there was
no form of art in which he was not interested and in which he did not
accomplish things worthy of his great time to be the admiration of
succeeding generations. Verrocchio was a great painter as well as a
sculptor, but he was also a worker in metals and, as so many of these
artists of the Renaissance, quite ready to design household objects
for even ordinary use, provided only he was allowed to put beauty in
them. Drinking vessels, instruments of music, gates, wooden doors and
above all any objects that were meant for sacred uses he was glad to
take commissions for.
It was just the place to train such a many-sided genius as Leonardo,
though rather let us say it was just the place for such a many-sided
genius to find and train himself. Certainly the young Leonardo must
have owed very little except suggestion and some minor directions in
technics to anyone else. He very soon came to surpass his master in
painting at least, and the master recognized that fact apparently
without any jealousy. According to the story as we have it, Verrocchio
was employed by the Brethren of Vallombrosa to paint the "Baptism of
Christ." Leonardo was given by the master permission to paint an angel
in the left-hand corner. There was such a striking contrast between
the fresh youthful work of the pupil and the labored work of the
master that Verrocchio is said to have painted no more, or at least
made no more ambitious attempts at great pictures. Sculpture was
always the favorite of the old master, however, so that it was not so
much of a tragedy.
It was after this, in his early manhood, that Leonardo became
interested in the things of nature around him and made many
investigations into their meaning. He took up astronomy for a time and
anticipated some of the thoughts that Copernicus was to put in order
in his great theory. Such ideas in astronomy were in the air at that
time. Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa had more than hinted at them when,
about the middle of the fifteenth century, he declared that the earth
moved in the heavens like the other stars. Astronomical subjects were
{28} favorite speculations for intellectual genius. Regiomontanus, who
died before he was forty, was alive in Leonardo's boyhood, and after
having begun that series of astronomical leaflets which later were to
influence so deeply Columbus and the Portuguese navigators, was
invited down to Rome to reform the calendar. Toscanelli made the
observations on comets, out of which later their orbits were
confirmed. Every form of natural observation caught the inquiring
Leonardo's eye, and he studied the plants around him and meditated on
crystal formation and occupied himself with all the forms of living
things. Somehow his feeling seemed to be that such broadening of his
intelligence would help him to breadth of expression in art, though
probably it was only his native curiosity occupying itself in the
insatiable youthful years with everything that came to hand. His
achievements in science are sketched hurriedly in the chapter on
Physical Science.
Leonardo seems to have occupied himself much with mechanical toys. He
made mechanical birds that flew, mechanical lions that walked and a
lizard which crawled and whose horns and eyes moved while the
oscillating wings were constantly in motion. Every one of these
contrivances, however, was the result of serious study. He took up
with great assiduity the problem of flying and was quite sure that he
would be able to make a machine by which men would accomplish
locomotion through the air. He studied the wings of birds very
carefully, and anticipated the knowledge of most of the principles of
flight as they developed in later years. He used his mechanical lion
as a bait to catch the attention of Francis I. The beast is said to
have walked across the audience chamber towards the monarch until,
when close to him, it stood up and disclosed the fact that the "Lily
of France" was stamped upon its heart. Leonardo's own name is derived
from lion and this was supposed to be his declaration of patriotic
affection and loyalty to the French King.
Something of the _busyness_ of his mind can be understood from the
gossip that one hears about him in the letters of the time or even
from what may be concluded from his own diary. It is said, for
instance, that in the midst of the painting of the "Last Supper" there
was quite an interruption in the work {29} because Leonardo became
very much interested in the invention of a new machine for mincing
meat and making sausages. The head of one of the Apostles was left
unfinished for a time because Leonardo could not get the blades of the
new machine fixed so as to make them more to his satisfaction.
Unfriendly critics said that he would do anything so as to get away
from his painting. Those who least understood declared that this was
because he was trivial of mind and incapable of concentrating his
attention. Anyone who has done artistic work of any kind, or indeed
has devoted himself to literary work of any description, is likely to
understand Leonardo's ways in such matters. The time comes when the
particular vein of thought is exhausted for the moment and new ideas
come slowly and with difficulty. The serious self-critical writer or
artist recognizes that what he does at such times has not the
significance he would like it to have and that he is likely to have to
erase or greatly modify most of it afterwards or to regret it if he
does not. If he is wise, then, he turns aside and gives his mind a
complete rest by devoting it to something quite different from that in
which he has been engaged before. If he insists on continuing his work
after inspiration ceases or his particular vein of thought runs out,
it becomes more and more difficult and more and more of a drudgery.
Finally, unless he is almost entirely without proper
self-appreciation, he literally has to give up the work that has
become so difficult.
Leonardo did not wait for this, but after a certain set of ideas had
run out devoted himself to other and quite different things. He had
had trouble with cleaning his brushes, and had found that a rather
strong lye could be extracted from fowls' droppings. He at once
devoted considerable time to finding out whether the material thus
obtained could not also be used for the washing of linen. Indeed, his
attention to inventions for the relief of domestic difficulties stamps
him as quite modern in his notions. Besides his sausage-making machine
he invented a spit for the roasting of pigs and designed various forms
of utensils that would be handier than those commonly in use at that
time.
Some of Leonardo's expressions are well worth chronicling {30} because
they show us so well the character of the man. He did not write any
moral essays, but a number of expressions of his that have been
preserved show that he had decided and very definite opinions with
regard to many important human interests. His greatest picture was
probably the "Battle of the Standards," in which, according to the
descriptions preserved for us, he pictured all the horrors of war. He
depicted the frenzy of contest at its fiercest. In one of his famous
expressions he disposes of war in two words as _pazzia bestialissima_.
I find it a little hard to translate that in the force of the
original, but I suppose it would be something like "the climax of
animal frenzy." Even that is not as strong as that superlative
_bestialissima_ in Italian.
The ease with which he transferred his services from one distinguished
noble master to another has led some to suggest that he was lacking in
loyalty, or at least was quite satisfied with life so long as he found
someone to pay him for his work. As a matter of fact he often spent
much more in experiments of various kinds than he was paid for the
results of his labors, and money seems to have meant very little to
him. He was known to be generous to his friends, and he once said "the
poor are those who have many wants." He realized very well that
poverty is entirely relative, and if a man is dissatisfied with what
he has he is poor, no matter how much he has. As might be expected,
above all Leonardo realized the preciousness of work. For him indeed
blessed was the man who had found his work. His expression was "as a
day well spent gives joyful sleep, so does a life well spent give
joyful death."
With the disturbed conditions in Italy in his time he probably had to
suffer many injustices, frequently had his labors interrupted, his
work often undone, and it is easy to understand how much the jealousy
of smaller men around him must have irritated him. He realized,
however, that happiness depends on not permitting one's self to be
bothered by such trifles. The only satisfaction is to go on with one's
works. As he said, "The best shield against injustice is to double the
cloak of longsuffering." His philosophy of life was in many ways
ideal, then. Something of a stoic one needs must be to follow {31} it,
but why should the petty trivialities of foolish human squabbling
disturb a man who has all of art and science spread out before him and
who knows so much more than others of his generation, but whose
knowledge surely must have made it very clear to him how little after
all he knew of all that was to be known?
Like his Italian contemporaries, generally, Leonardo remained faithful
in his adhesion to the old Church. His charming "Madonna" and his
"Last Supper" could scarcely have come from one who was not a
believer. If these things were mere matters of imagination for the
artists of the Renaissance, they would not have been expressed with
such marvellous reality. We do not know much about his life, though we
know so much about his work and thought. When he came to die, however,
he left a legacy for masses for his soul. This was the custom of the
time and might very well be considered only a conventional
acknowledgment of his adhesion to the customs of his contemporaries.
Besides, however, he left a sum of money for candles to be burnt at
the shrine of the Blessed Virgin in the little village where he had
been raised as a boy and where he had often prayed. This would seem to
indicate that the faith of his childhood was still precious to him or
had come back in its boyish tenderness at the end of his life. His
whole career is that of a wonderfully-rounded man who could scarcely
fail to recognize the place of the spiritual in life and its
significance for man's understanding of the universe.
Burckhardt concludes one of the chapters of his work on "The
Renaissance in Italy" with words that probably sum up better than any
others Leonardo's character. No one was better fitted to know whereof
he spoke than the great German historian of the Renaissance. "The
colossal outlines of Leonardo's nature can never be more than dimly
and distantly conceived."
{32}
CHAPTER III
MICHELANGELO
Probably the greatest artistic genius that the world has ever known,
certainly the man who was best able to express his thoughts most
perfectly in every mode of art, with chisel, pencil, brush and pen,
was the son of Lodovico de Leonardo Buonarroti-Simoni, whom succeeding
generations have known as Michelangelo. He was a member of a noble
Italian family much reduced in the world. They claimed to be related
to the celebrated Counts of Canossa in Northern Italy, and when Angelo
became famous there was a recognition of the relationship by the head
of the Canossa family of that day. Nobility is usually willing to be
related to great genius, but genealogists have not been able to trace
the relationship. When Michelangelo was born (March 6, 1475), his
father was the governor of the Castle of Caprese, which stood on the
crest of a bold and rocky ridge of the Catenaian Alps, overlooking the
wild and rugged hills in which the Tiber and Arno rise. He died two
months before Shakespeare's birth in 1564, when another month of life
would have brought him to his ninetieth year. He is another typical
example of the fact that genius usually inhabits long-lived bodies.
Great men may be short-lived by accident, but as a rule the
over-abounding vitality, which enables a great mind to express itself
greatly, also enables the personality with which it is associated to
reach longevity.
It is fortunate for us, seeing that Angelo was such a great genius,
that as Lilly said: [Footnote 2] "There are few great men of whom we
possess so many and such authentic documents." His works are the
living monuments of his genius, but we have, besides even minute
details of all his long life, his struggles, {33} his triumphs, his
friendships, his patrons and above all the fire of trial through which
his genius passed in order to secure its expression of itself.
[Footnote 2: W. S. Lilly: "Renaissance Types." Macmillan, 1904.]
Michelangelo's mother died when he was very young, her only place in
his life being that she gave him his name because she saw something
divine in him, though perhaps that is not rare. When his father's term
of office expired he returned to Florence, but left his infant son at
Caprese in the care of a wet nurse, the daughter of a stone mason and
the wife of another stone mason. Michelangelo often said that he
imbibed a love for marble and stone-cutting with his first
nourishment. The chisel and mallet were his early play-toys, and
though he was but six when taken to Florence, there is a tradition of
rude charcoal sketches made on the walls by him in his country home.
In Florence he was sent to the school of the famous grammarian,
Francesco Venturino of Urbino, the teacher of the New Learning, who
was also some years later a teacher of Raphael. Michelangelo,
according to tradition, paid little attention to his books, however,
but was constantly to be found with a pencil in his hand, making
sketches of all kinds. He became associated with some art pupils and
artists, and before long most of his time was given up to drawing and
sketching.
While Michelangelo lived in the Renaissance time, and was undoubtedly
influenced very deeply by the humanistic movement, this influence was
exerted in very different fashion from what is usually supposed by
those who think of the Renaissance as the time when the re-discovery
of the Greek classics made for book-knowledge and a consequent
deepening and sharpening of the intellectuality of man. Michelangelo
had very little interest in books at any time, probably despised
scholarship, had little Latin, though it would have been so easy for
him to have learned it, seeing that his native tongue was Italian, and
had probably no Greek. He died, as I have said, the year that
Shakespeare was born, and much has been made of the supposed
impossibility of Shakespeare's wonderful conception of the universe of
man without more knowledge in the sense of scholarship. Shakespeare
had little Latin and less Greek, but undoubtedly the man who best
deserves place beside him is Michelangelo, who was similarly situated.
{34} Condivi tells us that books were to Michelangelo "a dull and
endless strife." He was very often dreadfully beaten--as the artist
tells it himself, _bene spesso stranamente battuto_--for wandering in
the workshops of artists instead of going to school, or sketching for
himself instead of studying his books.
His father had intended that his son should go into the silk and
woollen business. When he discovered his artistic proclivities, of
course he forbade such foolish waste of time and punished the lad
severely. It seemed a disgrace that a member of the respectable
Buonarroti family should take up so non-lucrative and
little-considered occupation as that of a painter on canvas and worker
in marble. There was the usual result. Michelangelo could not overcome
his native genius, and after some trying scenes his father finally
consented to permit him to enter the studio of Domenico Ghirlandajo,
who was at the moment the most distinguished painter in Italy. It was
not long, moreover, before Angelo was correcting his master's drawing.
At first Ghirlandajo was disturbed by this, but he was won inevitably
by the distinction of Angelo's work until one day he declared, though
altogether Angelo was only a year in his studio, "this young man knows
more of art than I do myself." Then he was given a place in the
Academy of Lorenzo de' Medici, Ghirlandajo having been asked to
nominate two of his best pupils for the Academy and selecting as one
Angelo. Surely this selection proved that the teacher was not, as some
have said, jealous of the pupil.
At Lorenzo's academy Michelangelo came in contact with some of the
most distinguished men of Italy of that day. There were Lorenzo's two
sons, Giovanni and Giulio, who afterwards became Popes Leo X and
Clement VII; Pico della Mirandola, the poet and scholar; Politian, the
poet, classicist and philosopher; Ficino, the head of the Platonic
academy at Florence of that day, and Bibbiena and Castiglione, the
latter subsequently the author of the famous book _"Il Cortigiano."_
The two last-named were Raphael's great friends when a few years later
he was studying in Florence. It is not surprising that under these
circumstances Angelo became very much interested in antique sculpture,
nor that his first independent work was a bas-relief, representing a
battle between Hercules {35} and the Centaurs. This is still preserved
in the Casa Buonarroti, and with its crowded figures reveals the
genius and the assured artistic grasp of the future great sculptor who
executed it.
Angelo, however, soon realized that if he was to do sculpture
successfully he must study not only the outside of the human body and
the antique sculptures, but he must know all the structures of the
body. Accordingly he had dead bodies conveyed from the hospital to a
special room provided for him in the convent of Santo Spirito, and
dissected them carefully. It has often been said in the modern time
that at this period dissection was forbidden by the Church, but there
is absolutely no trace of any such legislation, and every artist of
the latter part of the fifteenth century did dissection. Michelangelo
rewarded the prior of the monastery for his help in these studies by
carving for him a crucifix out of wood, which revealed the benefit
derived from his dissections. With such zeal for art it is not
surprising that the young man soon found himself capable of doing
sculpture of great artistic significance. We have traditions of a
statue of "Hercules," a high relief of the "Madonna" and a "Sleeping
Cupid," which had an eventful history. A dealer buried it in the earth
for a time and then sold it as an antique. Cardinal Riario, who
purchased it, finding out the trick, invited the sculptor, who knew
nothing of the deception, to Rome, and some of his first important
work was done there.
His earliest Roman work was of antique subjects, a "Cupid," which has
been lost, and a "Bacchus," now in the Bargello. His first great
commission, however, came from the Cardinal de St. Denis, the French
Ambassador at Rome. This was of a "Madonna" with the dead Saviour on
her knees, just after His taking down from the Cross. The group is now
in St. Peter's at Rome, and though executed when Michelangelo was less
than twenty-five years of age, has come to be looked upon as one of
the great sculptures of the world. Copies of it are now to be seen in
most of the important museums, so that a good idea of his youthful
genius can be readily obtained by anyone desirous of knowing it.
Some critics have objected that the "Madonna" in the {36} group is
entirely too young to be the mother of the dead son, who lies across
her knees. Michelangelo's own answer to that objection is, of course,
the only one that will interest those who love the group and would
like to know just his meaning. We have it from Condivi, to whom
Michelangelo confided it:
"Don't you know," he said, "that chaste women keep their youthful
looks much longer than others? Isn't this much more true in the case
of a Virgin who had never known a wanton desire to leave its shade
upon her beauty! ... It is quite the contrary with the form of the
'Son of God,' because I wanted to show that He really took upon Him
human flesh, and that He bore all the miseries of man, yet without
sin."
The "Pieta" is probably one of the supreme sculptures of all time, but
Michelangelo's next important work was to place him beyond all doubt
in the rank of world sculptors. This was his "David." It is all the
more interesting because of the difficulties under which he executed
it. A huge block of marble of the finest vein lay in the works at
Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence, which several sculptors had designed
to make use of and at least two or three had begun work on, but then
had given up. Michelangelo saw it and saw in it the possibilities of a
heroic statue. He offered his design, it was accepted by the
authorities, and he set to work. He built a workshop on the spot and
shut himself up for eighteen months, absolutely refusing to let anyone
see his work. The result was the "David" so well known. A copy of it
was afterwards made in bronze and may be seen on the hill above
Florence. It has often been said that the difference in impressiveness
between the bronze and marble statues shows how much better adapted
marble is for the expression of the human figure. The triumph of the
artist, not only in the execution of this triumphant expression of
youth, but also over the strict limitations of his materials, shows
the eminently practical genius of the man who, at the age of thirty,
was able to accomplish such a work.
[Illustration: RAPHAEL, POPE JULIUS II]
After these great sculptures, Michelangelo entered into a competition
in painting and was chosen as a rival of Leonardo to decorate one side
of the Council Hall of the Signory. Leonardo was already at work when
Michelangelo received his {37} commission. Unfortunately neither of
the paintings was ever completed. Only a portion of Leonardo's cartoon
remains for us, though Michelangelo's, representing some Pisan
soldiers surprised by Florentines while bathing in the Arno, is now at
Holkham Hall in England and has been well engraved by Schiavonetti.
This cartoon was the subject of much study by contemporaries, and
Raphael particularly was greatly influenced by it.
After this work Michelangelo was summoned to Rome by Pope Julius II
and commissioned to make that great tomb which occupied so much of
Angelo's attention for the next quarter of a century, caused him so
many difficulties and disturbances of mind and was destined eventually
to remain unfinished or at least to be of nothing like the
significance that was originally planned. If one looks a little into
Michelangelo's life at this time, surrounded as he was by the
jealousies of his colleagues, disturbed at his work by political
animosities of various kinds, by the slights of those who failed to
appreciate and the open envy of those who favored his rivals, some
idea of the difficulties of his artistic soul will be understood.
In the midst of his preparations for the making of the great tomb of
Pope Julius, for which he spent nearly a year in the quarries up at
Carrara obtaining the proper kind of marble and working out three or
four statues while the men of the quarries were getting out the other
marble that he wished, the execution of the tomb was put off.
Fortunately the work done at this time was not entirely lost. The two
galley slaves at the Louvre, which are among the greatest sculptures
of their kind ever made, attest Michelangelo's industry, as well as
genius, and they have been favorite studies of artists of all kinds
ever since.
When the execution of the tomb was put off Michelangelo was summoned
to paint the vault of the Sistine Chapel. It is said that he owed this
commission to the jealousy of rivals who hoped to discredit him. The
Sistine Chapel is a most difficult room for effective decoration,
since it is simply an oblong box with a low-vaulted ceiling. It was
this ceiling that Michelangelo was supposed to decorate in fresco. He
{38} refused at first to accept the commission, saying that he was no
fresco painter, but the Pope insisted. For over three years, except
when eating and sleeping, he was hidden behind the scaffolding, lying
on his back most of the time painting above him, so that he could not
read without placing his book above his head after a while. When the
scaffold was taken down, the triumphant manifestation of his genius
revealed one of the most superb monuments of art that the world
possesses.
As Grimm says, "If a man wants to get an idea of the art of Giotto and
his pupils, architecture and painting together, he must go to the
Campo Santo at Pisa; if he wants the masterpiece of the following art
period, the extensive development that lies between Masaccio and
Michelangelo, he must go to the Sistine Chapel."
Fortunately for the after-time it is one of the few great decorative
works of this time that can be studied as the artist left it, or at
least without having to make allowance for the well-meant additions of
restorers. The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel has been sadly injured by
smoke and by water percolation from the roof and it has faded somewhat
with time under the conditions of use of the chapel, but it has been
spared from the misguided efforts of men by its position. A great Pope
is said to have said, "There are two ways of ruining a work of art, by
destruction and by restoration." He might well have added, especially
in the light of what has happened even in the Vatican to Raphael and
others, "and of the two the latter is the worse." From this
Michelangelo's great work has happily been saved, and as a result it
remains even in its damaged condition one of the acknowledged triumphs
of human art, undoubtedly the greatest decorative work that has ever
been done since the time of the Greeks.
Some of Michelangelo's greatest work was done for the Julian tomb, and
the triumph of his genius at this time is the "Moses," which was to
have been one of four prophets that were to have found a place on the
monument. It would not be difficult to collect some of the most
effusive expressions of artistic enthusiasm over the "Moses." Men who
are themselves great sculptors have declared that it is the triumph of
man's power over marble. It is extremely difficult, artists have {39}
declared, to give a work in marble a decided facial expression, yet
Michelangelo succeeded in doing it in the "Moses," but, as has also
been said, every portion of the statue partakes of this wonderful
power that he had of making it profoundly expressive. Men whose
opinions are valuable because of their own significant work have been
unstinted in their praise of the now famous knee of the statue and the
wonderful way in which the foot of the right leg rests upon the
ground. All these are but details, however. One must have seen the
statue many times and have had its meaning in every part grow by
repetition of impression, and then something of the wonderful genius
of its sculptor comes home to the beholder. We cannot but regret that
Michelangelo was not permitted in peace to finish the great tomb as he
had planned it, for with the "Moses" as an example we would surely
have had in it the greatest triumph of modern genius in sculpture, if
not indeed of all time.
This is probably one of the most striking figures ever made. It has
made the Church of San Pietro in Vincoli, in which it is, a place of
pilgrimage for artists from all over the world, and for all those
interested in art ever since. Michelangelo has taken the moment when
Moses, descending from the Mount with the tables of the law in his
hands, sees before him the procession of the Golden Calf. In Exodus it
is said, "he waxed hot with wrath." Moses has just come from communion
with the Most High, and his wrath is tempered and sublimated by
religious enthusiasm and by the majesty which the consciousness of his
high mission imparts to him. Every portion of the statue breathes with
the wrath of justice, yet with the sublime feeling of the awfulness of
the crime that has just been committed against the Most High and that
His servant must pitilessly condemn.
And yet, had the artist been allowed to work on uninterrupted at the
Julian tomb, we might have missed some or all of the great work that
he accomplished under the direction of the Medici Popes in Florence.
While the "Moses" is looked upon as the finest expression of his
powers in mature years, as the "David" is of his younger life, there
are good critics who have not hesitated to say that Michelangelo's
most {40} interesting work is to be found in the series of statues the
very consummation of the sculptor's skill which are in the sacristy of
San Lorenzo. There are four allegorical figures, "Dawn and Twilight,"
"Day and Night," which recall the principal phases and the rapid
course of man's destiny, in which Michelangelo has expressed in
imperishable marble his thoughts with regard to life and its
significance. There are, besides, two statues of the "Medici," one,
that of "Lorenzo"--not the great Lorenzo, but his son--and the other,
"Giuliano," the younger son of il Magnifico. So little are these
considered, however, now as portrait statues of the Medici that one of
them is known as _il pensiero_, the thinker, and its fellow is
likewise thought of as expressing an ideal rather than a person.
Michelangelo himself had said that in a hundred years no one would
care whom these statues represented, so looking through the temporal
with a great artist's vision they became in his hands symbols of
immortal moods of humanity.
Michelangelo's crowning work of a great lifetime came in his later
years when he devoted himself to architecture. In this department of
art he was as great as in any other and probably greater than anyone
who had ever preceded him. Some of his smaller works, as the "Porta
del Popolo" and the twin churches near it, are admirable in
themselves, yet simple and admirably suited to their surroundings.
Millet once said that the essence of beauty in art consists in the
adaptation of truth so as to suit the conditions. The triumph of
Michelangelo's architecture came in the great dome of St. Peter's. As
the great basilica was unfortunately finished in the after-time, no
proper conception of this can be obtained from the plaza of St.
Peter's. Close up only from the roof of the great Church itself does
one get a true idea of its marvellous beauty and stupendous size. It
was intended, of course, to be seen from a long distance, and when
thus seen it stands out with wondrous effectiveness. In the old days,
when men came in carriages over the mountains to Rome, the Dome of St.
Peter's was the first thing to be seen from twenty miles away, and,
thus seen, profoundly impressed the beholder. From Tivoli, for
instance, when nothing else is visible above the horizon except
Michelangelo's mighty dome, and all of Rome, {41} even on her seven
hills, is lost to sight, its stupendous size and wondrous charm can be
properly appreciated. It then appeals to the beholder not as a work of
man, but seems more like some great natural wonder from the hand of
the Creator Himself.
How Michelangelo succeeded in building it with the materials that he
had at hand, with the assistance--material and personal--that he could
command, and in spite of all the obstacles that were placed in his
path, the misunderstandings, the jealousies, the petty rivalries of
smaller artists, is indeed a wonder. Some of his biographers have been
astonished that he should have known enough of mathematics to be able
to plan and construct it properly. They frankly confess that he had no
opportunity as a young man to make the mathematical studies necessary
for such work and apparently forget that whenever Michelangelo would
do anything he somehow found in himself the power to accomplish his
purpose with absolute thoroughness. He had set out to put the Pantheon
above St. Peter's tomb, and he succeeded in his ambition, for the
great dome, though it does not begin to curve into a dome until it is
more than a hundred feet above the pavement, is somewhat larger in
diameter than the great vault of the Pantheon, the triumph of Roman
power to build, which had been hailed as one of the wonders of the
world.
One further phase of Michelangelo's accomplishment must be mentioned.
This greatest of sculptors, boldest and most successful of architects
and finest of decorative painters, was also one of the greatest of
poets. "Four-souled" is the apt epithet that has been coined to
express this versatility. It has been said that only Dante and
Shakespeare have equalled him in the writing of sonnets, and there is
no doubt at all that he is one of the most important contributors to
Italian literature, even in the glorious Age of Leo X. Addington
Symonds declared his sonnets to be the rough-hewn blocking out of
poems rather than finished works of art, and the great Italian critic,
Bembo, declared "he says _things_, while other poets say words." His
friend and biographer, Condivi, said, "he devoted himself to poetry
rather for his own delight than because he made a profession of it,
always depreciating himself and accusing his {42} ignorance." His
poems were scribbled on the backs of old letters or drawings or other
papers that chanced to be around, and only occasionally copied and
sent off to his friends. Although often urged by his friends, he would
never consent to make any collection of his poems during his lifetime.
Many of them were faithfully preserved, however, and of some of them
the various readings and corrections show that his artistic sense
would not allow him to let things go from him without, to some extent
at least, giving them a form worthy of the thought.
Nowhere can one find the character of Michelangelo better expressed
than in his sonnets, and there is a deep religious vein in them which
reveals the profound belief of this greatest of men in all the great
truths of Christianity and his sense of personal devotion to the
Creator and his dependence on Him and the necessity for doing
everything for Him that is extremely refreshing. For Michelangelo this
was the solution of the mystery of life.
Perhaps the best idea of his sonnets can be obtained from his lines on
Dante. It had come to be the custom during the Renaissance to think
that the only literature worth while thinking about was the classical,
and above all Greek, and that the Middle Ages had produced nothing of
significance in art or letters. Even Dante was not thought to be a
great exception to this rule, though it was admitted that he stood far
above his contemporaries. The word Gothic, as applied to the
architecture, the art and the literature of these rude ancestors, the
descendants of the Gothic barbarians, was invented by the critics of
the Renaissance to express to the full their contempt for the products
of the earlier period. Michelangelo had no illusions with regard to
comparative values. Above all he recognized the surpassing character
of Dante's poetry. His sonnet tells the rest and sympathetically
insists that he would have been willing to have borne even Dante's
years of suffering and exile to produce such marvellous poetry.
"Into the dark abyss he made his way;
Both nether worlds he saw, and in the might
Of his great soul beheld God's splendor bright,
And gave to us on earth true light of day:
Star of supremest worth with his clear ray,
Heaven's secrets he revealed to our dim sight,
And had for guerdon what the base world's spite
Oft gives to souls that noblest grace display,
Full ill was Dante's life work understood,
His purpose high by that ungrateful state.
That welcomed all with kindness but the good.
Would I were such, to bear like evil fate.
To taste his exile, share his lofty mood!
For this I'd gladly give all earth calls great."
{43}
The bitter rivalries and jealousies that surrounded him have sometimes
produced the impression that Michelangelo must himself have been of a
carping disposition, not ready to acknowledge the merits of other
artists, though it is felt in extenuation, as it were, that in this he
only shared the spirit of the time. Any such impression would be quite
unjustified by what we know of Michelangelo. His admiration for the
ancients was unbounded. It was he who, when they were first excavated,
stepped up to the horses that are now on the Capitoline in Rome, and
patting one of them on the back said "get up," as if they seemed to
him so true to life that they ought to walk off. A single paragraph
from the sketch of Michelangelo in the Artists' Biographies [Footnote
3] will show how thoroughly he appreciated some of his immediate
predecessors:
[Footnote 3: Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1878.]
"Angelo was a great admirer of the three famous Florentine artists
who had preceded him. Of Ghiberti's 'Gates to the Baptistry,' he
said, 'They are so beautiful that they are worthy of being the gates
of Paradise.' Standing before Donatello's statue of St. Mark, he
cried out, 'Mark, why don't you speak to me?' and on another
occasion he said, 'If St. Mark looked thus we may safely believe
what he has written.' When he was advised to vary the lantern on the
Medici Chapel from that which Brunelleschi had built on the old
sacristy of San Lorenzo, he remarked, 'It may be varied, but not
improved.' Of other artists he spoke no less pleasantly, saying of
Gentile da Fabriano that his name corresponded with the grace of his
{44} style; and of Cesari's medals, that 'art has reached its last
hour, for beyond this it cannot go.'"
If there ever was a man who had a right to pride himself a little on
his powers and his achievements, surely it was Michelangelo. He had
succeeded in bodying forth thoughts too deep for words in every mode
of human expression, even making words serve his purpose greatly
though inadequately; men of genius had so admired his work and been
influenced by it that all during life he had that sincerest of
flattery, imitation, from men who themselves were among the notable
geniuses of his generation, yet it was he who, in his sonnet towards
the end of his life, begged pardon of his God if he had ever used his
powers as if they were his own and not for the glory of the Creator
who had given them. We have any number of stories of his patient study
of art and architecture, even until the end of his life. Once Cardinal
Farnese met him, when he was past sixty, in solitary contemplation
amid the ruins of the Coliseum. To his question as to why he was there
and alone, Angelo replied, "I am still at school taking my lessons so
that I may continue to learn." He once drew a picture of an old man,
somewhat resembling himself, seated in a child's carriage with the
motto, "I still learn."
His anatomical studies begun in his early youth at Florence were never
given up, and when other subjects were lacking he dissected domestic
animals and above all welcomed the opportunity to dissect several
horses. Duerer in Germany and Da Vinci in Italy had been faithful
dissectors, and Michelangelo kept up the tradition.
The personality of this greatest of geniuses that the world has ever
known can scarcely fail to be interesting. Michelangelo is the true
type of one of the greatest periods of human history, and as such
every detail of his life appeals to men. Like many great geniuses,
Michelangelo was what is called a handy man, that is, one who could
fashion implements and objects skilfully with his hands. It is said
that all through his life he preferred not to entrust the making of
the implements of his art to any other hand. He used to make his own
chisels, files, and piercers and to mix his own colors. Even to an
advanced age he continued to use the chisel for himself and was
{45}ever famous for his audacious skilfulness with it. At the age of
sixty he is described as bringing down more scales from a very high
block of marble in a short time than three young marble-cutters could
in three or four times that space. With a single blow, Vigenero
described him as bringing down scales of marble three or four inches
in breadth and with such precision to the line that if he had broken
away, even a very little more, he risked the ruin of his work.
How lonely he was in the midst of all his great work, and how many
material difficulties there were to weigh on his spirit and keep him
from intoxication with that joy of the artist in accomplishment, which
might even have hurt the work or at least the striving of even so
great an artist as he, can be very well understood through quotations
from some letters to his father, in which, not querulously, but as if
needing someone as a confidant, he pours out his inmost feelings:
"I stand here in intense anxiety and with the greatest fatigue of
body. I have no friends of any sort, nor do I wish any; and I have
not time enough to eat what is needful. Let no more annoyances be
added to me, for I cannot bear another ounce." In the summer of 1508
he wrote, "I am sick at heart, ill, and worn out with fatigue,
helpless and penniless." A year later he wrote again: "The Pope has
not given me a groat for a year; and I do not ask for it, for I feel
that I have not merited it, and this because painting is not the
sort of work which is my profession. And yet I waste my time without
fruits--God help me!"
Michelangelo's views with regard to matrimony are well known. To a
priest who asked him one day why he never married he said, "I have a
wife who is too much for me already; one who unceasingly persecutes
me. It is my art; and my works are my children." And yet his
tenderness of soul and his affection for children was not eclipsed by
his absorption in his art, for Grimm tells the story of a child
stopping him on the street and asking him to make a drawing, and the
artist took the sheet of paper offered him and fulfilled the wish.
When Michelangelo was an old man of seventy-five, however, he was
ready to give advice to his grandnephew Leonardo in the matter of
marriage. That advice is interesting {46} from a good many
standpoints, but especially because Michelangelo thought that the
choice of a wife was something to pray and ask for special aid from on
High about:
"Leonardo, I wrote thee about taking a wife, and told thee of three
girls which have been here mentioned to me. ... I do not know any of
them, and cannot say either good or evil of them, nor advise you
about one more than the other. ... Giov. Francesco might give you
good advice; he is old and knows the world. [Michelangelo himself
was seventy-five years young at this time.] Remember me to him.
Above all, seek the counsel of God, for it is a great step. Remember
that the husband should be at least ten years older than the wife,
and that she should be healthy." Again he wrote, "Leonardo, I sent
thee in my last a note as to marriageable girls, which had been sent
me from Florence. ... Thou needst a wife to associate with, and whom
thou canst rule, and who will not care about pomps, and run about
every day to parties and marriages. It is easy for a woman to go
wrong who does these things. Nor is it to be said by anyone that
thou wishest to ennoble thyself by marriage, for it is well known
that we are as ancient and noble citizens of Florence as those of
any other house. Recommend thyself to God and He may aid thee."
[Footnote 4]
[Footnote 4: It may be interesting to know that the grand-nephew
did take a wife, one of those recommended by his grand-uncle, and
that Michelangelo dictated the names of the children, often went
to see them, loaded them with presents and was their mother's best
friend and confidant.]
The great artist did not escape the disturbing cares of family life by
his bachelorhood, however, for it became the custom of his brothers to
turn to him for aid whenever there was trouble. His family had
objected to his becoming a sculptor because it was beneath the dignity
of their nobility, but now that he was successful they were quite
willing to use his money freely. He had a scapegrace younger brother
who was particularly a thorn in his side, ever getting into trouble
and being helped out, above all constantly demanding money.
Michelangelo once wrote to him while he was at work on the great
ceiling of the Sistine.
"If you take care to do well, and to honor and revere your {47}
father, I will aid you like the others, and will soon establish you
in a good shop. ... I have gone about throughout all Italy for
twelve years, leading a dog's life, bearing all manner of insults,
enduring all sorts of drudgery, lacerating my body with many toils,
placing my life itself under a thousand perils solely to aid my
family, and now that I have commenced to raise it up a little, thou
alone wishest to do that which shall confound and ruin in an hour
everything that I have done in so many years and with so many
fatigues."
Michelangelo's letters of consolation to his brother's (Leonardo's)
daughter, who was delicate and ailing, show how tender were his family
affections. He has sometimes been pictured as the self-centred
bachelor, occupied only with his art. Any such picture of him is but
one of the many one-sided false impressions of these geniuses of the
Renaissance, all of whom, when known intimately, prove to be
whole-hearted human beings with all the human interests deeply
developed.
One of the most interesting incidents in Michelangelo's life is his
association with Vittoria Colonna. This is one of the most charming
episodes of platonic friendship with wonderful mutual influence for
good chronicled in history. Vittoria was an inspiration to
Michelangelo in his work, and his tributes to her are full of the
loftiest admiration and almost saintlike worship. On the other hand,
no one could have held a higher place in the esteem of Vittoria than
Michelangelo. She had suggested the subjects for certain pictures and
Michelangelo painted them. She wrote in thankfulness and said with
regard to one of them:
"I had the greatest faith in God, that He would give you a
supernatural grace to paint this 'Christ'; then I saw it, so
wonderful that it surpassed in every way my expectations. Being
emboldened by your miracles, I desired that which I now see
marvellously fulfilled--that is, that it should stand in every part
in the highest perfection, and that one could not desire more nor
reach forward to desire so much. And I tell you that it gave me joy
that the angel on the right hand is so beautiful; for the Archangel
Michael will place you, Michelangelo, on the right hand of the Lord
at the Judgment Day. And, meanwhile, I know not how to serve you
otherwise than to {48} pray to this sweet 'Christ,' Whom you have so
well and perfectly painted, and to entreat you to command me as
altogether yours in all and through all."
This friendship of Michelangelo and Vittoria has become so celebrated
that to many it may seem that time has woven a romantic halo around
it, far transcending the reality. Only a little study of contemporary
documents, however, is needed to show that the facts are interesting
beyond even the stories that are told. Modern biographers have
enriched the tradition with many details, and Grimm has given a most
beautiful picture of this most famous of friendships between man and
woman which reflects so much honor on both the participants. Nothing
that I know contradicts so many false notions as to the Renaissance
that are widely disseminated and that are only too often taken as a
criterion of modes of thinking and of conduct in this period. All the
so-called Pagan tendencies of the Renaissance are contradicted by it.
Condivi, Angelo's pupil, who wrote about his master during his
master's lifetime and who was intimately associated with him for many
years, pays an affectionate tribute to Michelangelo's purity of mind
and speech. The great master was a model of magnanimity, and Condivi
says:
"I have often heard him speak about love; and others who have
listened to him on this subject will bear me out in saying that the
only love of which he spoke was the kind which is spoken of in
Plato's works. For my part I do not know what Plato says, but one
thing I, who have lived with him so long and so intimately, can
assert, that I have never heard any but the purest words issue from
his mouth."
He was one of the most abstemious of men. He literally thought nothing
about creature comforts. Often he would take a piece of bread in his
hand while at his work and that would be all during the course of a
long day. His meals were likely to be irregular, and he paid very
little attention to them. As for his sleep, he was noted even among
the strenuous livers of his time for his ability to work without sleep
and for the small amount that he took. When he was deeply interested
in some work he would lie down in his clothes, and after a few hours
get up to work again. The surprise is that he should {49} have lived
to the age of nearly ninety under such living conditions, but work
never kills, and if the original vitality is extensive men live on to
the limit of existence much better by consuming their energy than by
allowing it to react within them, as it so often does. Some repentant
expressions of his had been taken to indicate, be it said by modern
writers, never by his contemporaries, that he was of a passionate
nature and had given rein to his impulses in youth. Except these words
of repentance, however, which are rather conventional in his time and
indicate a falling below ideals rather than actual serious faults, we
have absolutely no evidence. On the other hand, we have some
expressions of his which indicate how much difficulty he found in
curbing his passions in youth and how glad he is that he used the
effort, since it saved him from regrets in after life.
The thought of death was a favorite one with him, and he seems
frequently to have dwelt on it and to have considered that there was
no thought that was better for a man. Not only did it prove
chastening, but above all it helped a man to eliminate the quest of
the trivial and the merely selfish in life. He held the thought of
death as the only consideration that makes us know ourselves and saves
us from becoming a prey to kindred, friends or masters, to ambition,
and to the other vices and sins which rob a man of himself. That was
his main purpose in life, to live it for accomplishment and not merely
for the trifles which easily satisfy so many men. Whenever he was
tempted to permit himself to derogate from his highest aims in life
for the sake of the distinction of the moment, the thought of death
was sobering, and the time when the darkness cometh and no man can
labor brought him back to his best work, no matter what the
difficulties might be in doing it.
Angelo's relation to religion is all the more interesting because it
is often said that the great men of the Renaissance, because of their
profound study of pagan antiquity, had become touched with paganism.
There is not a trace of this in Michelangelo, however, and surely he
must be considered as the typical great man of the Renaissance. All
his life he had thought of his relation to his Creator and of the
necessity for accomplishing work, not for himself alone nor for
selfish {50} purposes, but with great aims that would be worthy of the
talents that had been given him. Once, when he was having great
difficulties because of opposition to his plans and interference with
designs that he felt must be carried out, he said to Pope Paul III,
"Holy Father, you see what I gain; if these fatigues which I endure do
not benefit my soul I lose both time and labor." The Pope, with whom
Michelangelo was a great favorite and who loved above all his sincere,
straightforward simplicity and his deep feeling of religion, laid his
hands paternally on the great artist's shoulders and said, "Have no
doubt. You are benefiting both soul and body."
Toward the end of his life his mind became more and more occupied with
religious thoughts, and there was a charmingly simple piety that he
cultivated. This had been expressed often before in his great works of
art, both paintings and sculptures, and still more clearly in his
sonnets. Some seem to think that an artist, because of his occupation,
may express beautiful thoughts on religious subjects, even though he
does not feel them. Somehow it is supposed to be the artist's business
to work himself into such moods and then express them, as if it were
possible to express greatly in art, what one does not really feel.
Most people, however, seem to think that formal expression in _words_
must mean more in such matters, and for them Michelangelo's sonnets
will doubtless be proofs of his absolute sincerity in religious
matters. Towards the end of his life most of his poetry is deeply
religious in character. He sent two sonnets to Vasari when he was
about seventy-five, as he told the biographer "that you may see where
I keep my thoughts." A more lofty expression of Christian humility and
the spirit of prayerfulness has perhaps never been made. One of them,
because it expresses his recognition of the fact that the trifles of
the world had carried even him away, that _fascinatio nugacitatis quae
obscurat bona_ of the Scriptures, is worth quoting as a summation of
his religious life and feelings:
{51}
"The fables of the world have filched away
The time I had for thinking upon God;
His grace lies buried 'neath oblivion's sod,
Whence springs an evil crop of sins alway.
What makes another wise, leads me astray,
Slow to discern the bad path I have trod:
Hope fades, but still desire ascends that God
May free from self-love, my sure decay.
Shorten half-way my road to heaven from earth!
Dear Lord, I cannot even half-way rise
Unless Thou help me on this pilgrimage.
Teach me to hate the world so little worth.
And all the lovely things I clasp and prize.
That endless life, ere death, may be my wage."
Angelo's last work in sculpture was a group very like his first great
religious group, the "Pieta." It consisted of the Blessed Virgin with
the dead Christ and two other figures. Only the "Christ" was ever
finished. His intention was that this group should be placed on an
altar over his tomb, but his wish was never fulfilled. The
circumstances of his work at it are interesting. Like many an old man,
he often found himself wakeful at night and needed something to occupy
his thoughts. When he arose this way he used to work in solitude and
silence at these figures with loving recollection and care and with
the thought that it would be his monument after death. He had come to
look upon death rather as a friend than an enemy, saying once that
"life, which had been given to us without our asking, had wonderful
possibilities of good in it, and death, which came unsummoned from the
same Providential hand, could surely not prove less full of blessing."
Towards sunset on the eighteenth of February, 1564, Michelangelo
turned to his friends and said, "I give my soul to God, my body to the
earth and my worldly possessions to my nearest of kin, charging them
through life to remember the sufferings of Jesus Christ." In making a
will some years before, he left as alternative heir the Church, on
condition that the "income was to be given for the love of God to the
modest poor."
While Leonardo da Vinci was indeed a universal genius well deserving
of the high title, it must not be forgotten that the age in which he
lived was the age of Michelangelo. The "divine master," his compatriot
artists have loved to call him ever since his own day. It is probable
that he must be {52} conceded to have carried human nature as far in
its power of expression of the beauty and truth of life as any man
that ever lived. The divine in human nature nowhere shines out so
conspicuously as in Michelangelo's achievements. There was no form of
art, no mode of expression, no field of thought in which he did not
excel. It must be confessed that his thoughts were often too high and
too deep for human nature's limitations, and that he did not always
succeed in completing his work in such a way as he himself would have
wished, and above all such as would have made it thoroughly
comprehensible to ordinary mortals. His works give us a better idea of
human nature's possibilities, yet Vittoria Colonna, who knew him so
well, declared that those who admire Michelangelo's works admire but
the smallest part of him. She had come to realize how much more there
was in him than even his works made manifest. Often the artist is a
disappointment after his works. Michelangelo's personality made one
disappointed with his works as if there should be much more in them.
As his contemporaries knew him then, he was, if possible, greater than
he is revealed to us in his works. Probably no larger man in all the
best sense of that term has ever lived, painter, sculptor, architect,
poet, simple, humble, devout, in friendship a model, as a teacher
deeply beloved--this man, who succeeded so marvellously in everything
that he attempted, is one of human nature's proudest boasts, yet
himself realized poignantly how little he could really accomplish of
all that surged up in his soul. No career in history so makes it clear
that the breath of the Creator is in His creatures to inspire and
exalt. How deeply a creature may influence his kind, Michelangelo
illustrates as perhaps no other. There are certainly not more than a
few chosen spirits to be numerated on the fingers of one hand whom we
think of in the same breath with him when we count up man's beneficent
geniuses, and we can scarcely foresee an end to that influence apart
from the complete destruction of our modern civilization. As Grimm
said at the end of his sixth edition of Michelangelo's life, "It is
not thinkable that the influence on the artistic work of mankind which
has proceeded from him should not continue to wax with the course of
time."
[Illustration: FRA ANGELICO, ST. FRANCIS]
{53}
CHAPTER IV
SECONDARY ITALIAN PAINTERS OF THE CENTURY.
FRA ANGELICO, PERUGINO, FRA BARTOLOMMEO,
BOTTICELLI, BELLINI, TITIAN, CORREGGIO,
TINTORETTO, VERONESE AND OTHERS
Perhaps nothing illustrates better the wealth of genius in what we
have called Columbus' Century than the fact that after detailed
accounts of the lives of Raphael, Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci,
many painters of the first rank still remain to be treated of in the
second place, as it were, a number of them exhibiting some quality
that has given them an almost unique distinction in the history of
art. Some of these great painters are acknowledged to be among the
most distinguished artists of all time. When it is realized that men
like Fra Angelico, Perugino, Botticelli, Titian, Correggio, Tintoretto
and Veronese have to be grouped together in a single chapter, the
necessities of compression in our account of the century will begin to
be appreciated. Each of them deserves, for any adequate presentation
of his work, not a few paragraphs, but a large volume, and about each
of them indeed not one but many volumes have been written even
centuries after their deaths. It must not be forgotten that almost the
same abbreviation of the story must be made for any other phase of the
century's achievements.
When Columbus' Century opened, Fra Angelico had just been summoned to
Rome to set about what has usually been considered the crowning labor
of his life. This was the painting in fresco of the walls of the small
oratory in the Vatican, since known as the chapel of Nicholas V,
because the decoration of it was ordered by that great pontiff, a man
of deep scholarship and an enlightened patron of the fine arts, whose
aim to make Rome not only the centre of the religious life, but also
of the best influences for art and science for all the world, {54} has
come to be well recognized. Artists and art critics have been almost
fulsome in their praise of these decorations of Fra Angelico. The
walls were covered on three sides with two series of paintings, the
upper portion illustrating the life of St. Stephen, the lower that of
St. Lawrence. That two sets of subjects so similar should have been
treated in close juxtaposition without any repetition in design or
composition is in itself the best possible evidence of the artist's
power and his constructive imagination. The designs show a freshness
of conception very remarkable in a man of advanced years, yet withal
there is absolutely no falling off in the power and sincerity of his
art, and if anything a deepening of the religious feeling so
characteristic of him. When he did this work he was probably past
sixty-five years of age.
Fortunately in our day, when it is so easy to obtain cheap
reproductions of the works of all the great painters, and when copies
in color of Fra Angelico's paintings may readily be secured, anyone
may know for himself something at least of the sweetness and power of
this charming painter of the early Renaissance. His Madonnas have a
most taking motherly expression and yet are full of the mystic
saintliness that becomes the Mother of God. His angels are a
constantly-repeated argument and impelling appeal for the existence of
these invisible creatures, which have been well declared to look so
real as to be convincing. His pictures of Christ as man and boy are
replete with humanity, and yet have the Divinity shining through the
veils of flesh. No one but a man who believed firmly, completely and
entirely in what he was painting could ever have given us these
marvellous representations. It is easy to understand, then, that when
it comes to his pictures of the saints Fra Angelico has given us,
absolutely true to life, representations of them in various actions as
their activities appeal to him. Among them he has introduced some
portraits of his friends, thus laying the foundation of that portrait
painting which was to develop so finely in the next generation and
which was fortunately to preserve for us the features of so many whom
we would like to have known. In the meantime, in the background of his
pictures he has given us the beginning of modern landscape painting in
all the beauty and {55} charm of his own, simple, single-hearted way
of looking at the beauties of nature.
One of the most important of the Italian painters of the first half of
Columbus' Century, all the more interesting because he was young
Raphael's master, was Pietro Vannucci, whom, from the name of his
adopted town Perugia, the world of art knows as Perugino. He was born
just before the century began in 1447. His parents were poor, though
not of low condition, and as a boy Pietro worked as a shop drudge with
a painter in Perugia. There has been much discussion as to who this
painter was, and probably the best determination is Niccolo da
Foligno, who is sometimes considered the originator of the school of
Umbrian painters, in which Perugino thereafter took so important a
place. Niccolo was himself a pupil of Benozzo Gozzoli, who owed his
training to Fra Angelico. There were other artists at Perugia under
whose influence young Perugino came, and their names, when taken in
connection with those already mentioned, will show the wondrous art
influences abroad in the period. Vasari mentions also Bonfigli, known
also as Benedetto Buonfiglio, whose work can be seen at its best only
in Perugia and is well deserving of study, and Fiorenzo di Lorenzo, in
whom the typical Umbrian landscapes, which are so important a feature
in Perugino's pictures, first make their appearance. A still more
important influence in Perugino's life was Piero della Francesca, who
was perhaps at Perugia for a while, though Perugino may have met him
elsewhere.
After his apprentice work in art at Perugia, Perugino travelled and
was influenced by such men as Luca Signorelli, Lorenzo and the group
of great painters then at Florence, including Ghirlandajo, Cosi,
Moroselli and Botticelli, as well as the master Verrocchio, in whose
studio, or rather workshop, Perugino probably came in contact with
Leonardo da Vinci and also Lorenzo di Credi. There are two oft-quoted
lines from Giovanni Santi, "two youths alike in age and love, Leonardo
da Vinci and the Perugian Peter of Pieve." It was Perugino's merit to
have reached distinction, even amongst these, and his religious
pictures have a value all their own. After his years of training and
journeying, Perugino had his {56} opportunity at Rome, especially in
the Sistine Chapel. Of his work there, Berenson said in his "Central
Italian Painters of the Renaissance," "It is the golden joyous color
and the fine rhythm of the groups and above all the buoyant
spaciousness of this fresco that win and hold us." He has spoken of
"the golden dreamy summerings" of his pictures in the Louvre, and
especially "the round containing the Madonna with the guardian saints
and angels, all dipped in the color of Heaven, dreaming away in bliss
the glowing summer afternoon." Perugino's power to paint man "not as a
mite against infinity, but as man should be in Eden, dominant and
towering high over the horizon," has given him a place all his own.
"It is this exaltation of human being over the landscape that not only
justifies but renders paintings great."
Grimm, in his "Life of Michelangelo," goes out of his way to say that
"Perugino's work in the Sistine Chapel far surpasses the others,
though they include such great men as Botticelli, Signorelli and
Ghirlandajo. His simplicity, his symmetry, his thoughtful composition
and finishing of individual figures, though in the others these are
often in masses, scarcely to be distinguished, all these give a
surpassing distinction to his painting."
Perhaps the greatest tribute to Perugino that has been paid by
subsequent generations is the attribution to Raphael of some of the
works that have since been determined to be Perugino's. "Apollo and
Marsyas" of the Louvre, Paris, which has had its place in the Salon
Carre for thirty years, is a typical example and is still called a
Raphael in the Louvre catalogue, though now it has been almost
definitely assigned to Perugino. Most of the important galleries of
Europe have pictures that they value very highly that were done by
Perugino, and mistakes with regard to his work have always been such
as indicated the highest appreciation of Perugino, for they have been
attributed to great masters.
[Illustration: PERUGINO, ENTOMBMENT (PITTI)]
[Illustration: BORGOGNONE, ST. CATHARINE OF ALEXANDRIA]
One of the great painters of this time who, if he had done nothing
else but influence Raphael deeply, would deserve a place in any
account of the art of this century is Fra Bartolommeo. He was the
intimate personal friend of Savonarola and painted the well-known
portrait of the great preacher after {57} the unfortunate execution of
the friar. At a time when the Order of St. Dominic was very unpopular,
Bartolommeo entered it in 1500, and for a time gave up painting.
[Footnote 5] He returned to his art, however, "for the profit of the
Convent and the glory of God." Quite naturally he was very much
influenced by the works of Fra Angelico, his brother, in religion,
which were all round him in the monastery of San Marco, and also came
under the influence of Leonardo da Vinci, who worked at Florence
during the first decade of the sixteenth century. Bartolommeo had
charge of the studio San Marco, and it was here that Raphael came in
contact with him to the mutual benefit of both the painters, though
Raphael was much the younger man. In 1508 Bartolommeo visited Venice
and came under the spell of the rich coloring of Bellini and Titian.
[Footnote 5: It is often said that it was fortunate that
Savonarola's preaching did not continue to influence the Florentines
deeply, for if it had it would surely have seriously disturbed art,
and as it is, it is often declared that there must have been many
beautiful works of art sacrificed in the bonfires built in the
streets of Florence under Savonarola's inspiration. In the sketch of
Fra Bartolommeo (M. E. James, London, 1902), the answer to this is
contained in a single paragraph:
"The artists of Italy had no quarrel with the friar; some of the
best of them were his devoted friends, while many entered his
Order. Fra Filippo Lappacini in 1492, Fra Agostino di Paulo, Fra
Ambrogio and Fra Luca della Robbia, Fra Benedetto (miniature
painter), 1495, Fra Eustachio, 1496. Michael Angelo read the
friar's sermons constantly; Cronaca, the great architect, 'could
talk of nothing else.' Raphael painted him among the doctors of
the Church. Baldini, Lorenzo di Credi and Botticelli loved him."]
Fra Bartolommeo's greatest works are probably the "Marriage of St.
Catherine," "The Last Judgment," now in the Church of Santa Maria
Nuova, Florence, the picture which is said to have attracted the
attention of Raphael, and the well-known "Descent from the Cross," or
as it is often called, "Lamentation over Christ," "in which the
expression of suffering on the faces is charmingly differentiated for
the various characters of St. John, the Magdalen and the Blessed
Virgin, and so subdued that a heavenly peace illumines the group." It
has been declared that Bartolommeo united the spirituality {58} of Fra
Angelico to the perfect treatment in form and color of Raphael,
combined with a gentle gravity that was all his own and a devotion
that was part of his life. The "Descent from the Cross" is one of his
last works and, far from showing any sign of failing power, is
masterly and firm. In anatomy and composition and color it is
unsurpassed; in delicacy of feeling and religious devotion it is
considered one of the great pictures of the world. His portrait of
"Savonarola," a work of love on the part of an ardent disciple, is
deservedly his best-known work and is one of the great portraits of
all time, worthy to be placed beside those of such masters of
portraiture as Bellini, Titian, Raphael and even Leonardo.
Among the other secondary painters of Columbus' time one of the
greatest, an artist who would have stood out above all his
contemporaries in almost any other period of art, is Sandro
Botticelli. He is the only contemporary whom Leonardo mentions in his
"Treatise on Painting." A quarter of a century ago Walter Pater, in
his Renaissance essays, said of him in regard to this distinction of
being mentioned by Leonardo:
"This pre-eminence may be due to chance only, but to some it will
rather appear a result of deliberate judgment, for people have begun
to find out the charm of Botticelli's work; and his name, little
known in the last century, is quietly becoming important. In the
middle of the fifteenth century he had already anticipated much of
that meditative subtlety, which is sometimes supposed peculiar to
the great imaginative workmen of its close. Leaving the simple
religion which had occupied the followers of Giotto for a century,
and the simple naturalism which had grown out of it, a thing of
birds and flowers only, he sought inspiration in what to him were
works of the modern world, the writings of Dante and Boccaccio, and
in new readings of his own of classical stories; or if he painted
religious incidents, painted them with an undercurrent of original
sentiment, which touches you as the real matter of the picture
through the veil of its ostensible subject."
In his pictures of "Spring" and the "Birth of Venus," Botticelli has
shown his power to paint great imaginative pictures, and the "Venus"
particularly shows his faculty of expressing the intimate, elusive
psychology of his subject. In {59} his little sketch of Botticelli,
Streeter (Catholic Truth Society, London, 1900) says:
"Perhaps the most striking thing in this dainty discerned vision of
antiquity is the conscious emphasis laid on the distance from which
the vision is beheld. The sorrow Botticelli had learned to restrain
in his recent 'Madonnas' breaks out afresh in the wistful
plaintiveness of the goddess of pleasure, separated from her true
home by 'the travail of the world through twenty centuries,' by a
'yawning sepulchre wherein the old faiths of the world lay buried
and whence Christ had arisen.' It would seem, not as some critics
have asserted, that Botticelli strove, and strove in vain, to
achieve the true embodiment of a pagan ideal, but rather that he
sought in this strange mingling of pagan and mediaeval sentiment to
express his own profound instinct of the impossibility, to a later
age, of ever reaching it."
Botticelli is famous above all for his round pictures. Somehow these
_tondi_, as they are called, became fashionable in Florence about the
middle of the latter half of the fifteenth century, and when he was
about thirty Botticelli painted a series. One need only see the
charming reproductions that are now so often used for decorative
purposes to realize how beautiful they are. The "Madonna of the
Magnificat," so-called because the Blessed Virgin is represented with
pen in hand, as writing her song of praise, though also known as the
"Coronation of the Blessed Virgin" because the angels are represented
as placing the crown on her head, is the most perfect of these. The
lines of the composition, which have been exquisitely arranged so as
to fit into the round frame, have been very aptly compared with those
of the corolla of an open rose. Botticelli was able not only to
conquer the difficulties of this round form of painting, but actually
to elaborate out of the difficulties involved in this form of
composition new beauties, just as a poet may choose a particularly
difficult metre, and actually add to the quality or at least the charm
of his poetry by the exquisite form in which he puts it.
One of Botticelli's forms of artistic activity that has attracted the
attention of artists and literati very much in the modern {60} time is
his execution of a series of illustrations for Dante. With his
profound sympathy with the mediaeval spirit it might well be
anticipated that he would make as nearly adequate illustrations of
Dante as may be possible. It requires a deep knowledge of Dante to
appreciate these illustrations. They are not at all like modern
attempts to illustrate Dante and are separated as far as Heaven from
earth from Dore's illustrations. They are extremely naive and simple,
and at first are likely to strike a modern as being caricatures rather
than illustrations. The grotesque element in Dante is not minimized to
the slightest extent. It requires much study to appreciate Ruskin's
profound expression that a noble grotesque is one of the most sublime
achievements of art. The illustrations have to be studied in
connection with the text and with a thorough spirit of devotion to
Dante before proper appreciation comes. Great authorities in art and
in the older literature, however, have united in declaring these the
most wonderfully illuminating illustrations of Dante that were ever
made. It is an index of the genius of Botticelli that he should have
achieved so marvellously in a mode of art unfamiliar to him personally
and then quite new in the world. His illustrations were made as copies
for the illustration of a printed book.
Until Botticelli has been studied faithfully and seriously, most
people are likely to think of him as a painter of what he saw with a
certain poetic charm and a naivete which makes him by contrast
particularly interesting to the modern world. Few realize how much
appreciative students of Botticelli, who are at the same time art
critics, have learned to think of his high seriousness, his lofty
purpose and his marvellous execution in his paintings. It is above all
for his psychology that he has come to be admired in the modern time,
and as our own interest in psychology has deepened, the appreciation
for Botticelli has grown. He was gifted with a profound psychological
insight into character, which he knew how to express with almost
incredible simplicity and directness. Talking of his St. Augustine,
St. Jerome, St. Eligius and St. John, a well-known German critic.
Prof. Steinman, recently said:
{61}
[Illustration: BOTTICELLI, ILLUSTRATION FOR DANTE]
{62}
"It would seem that in these four strongly contrasting figures
Botticelli aimed at portraying the four human temperaments in their
separate and distinctive modes of response to the same spiritual
appeal: the fiery enthusiasm of the impulsive St. John, looking
upwards, rapt in wonder; the studious concentration with which St.
Augustine, who here represents the phlegmatic temperament, unmoved,
continues his writing; the nerve-strained longing of St. Jerome,
worn and wasted with many fastings and watchings; and the benignity
of the sanguine St. Eligius, who, gazing before him, raises his hand
in blessing. With consummate skill, Botticelli has distinguished
between the reality of these living figures and the ideal quality of
the celestial vision. And a special artistic interest is given to
this picture, making it a typical instance of the rare versatility
of the painter's genius, by the fact that in the vigorous, massive,
realistic portraiture of the saints, in the fantastic, poetical
delicacy of the angelic choirs, in the stiff, severe traditionalism
of the central figures of the mystery, it shows three separate modes
of imaginative conception, three separate methods in the
manipulation of line and colour, so distinct and individualized that
it would seem almost that they must be the work of three separate
artists."
A very great painter, who is not often appreciated as he should be
outside of Italy, though in recent years he is much better known, is
Giovanni Bellini, the distinguished Venetian painter. His portrait of
the "Doge Loredano" is now recognized as one of the world's great
portraits, and copies of it are to be seen everywhere. His
masterpieces, however, are his altar pictures, which are noted for
their beauty and devotional quality. His Madonnas particularly are
famous. His well-known painting at Berlin of the "Angels Mourning over
Christ" is probably one of the most humanly touching of mystical
pictures. The "Presentation of the Infant Christ" in the Temple, in
which Mary is shown presenting the child to the High Priest over a
table, while the striking expression of worship on the faces of old
Simeon and Joseph completes the meaning of the picture in wondrous
fashion, is another typical example of Bellini's power to express the
loftiest devotional sentiments.
[Illustration: BELLINI, DOGE LOREDANO ]
Among those in second rank in this great period of art, one {63} of
the greatest was surely Titian. In any other period he would quite
easily have been the greatest painter of his time. His painting was
done in Venice, and his early training was in glass work and mosaic
work, to which apparently must be attributed his marvellous
development of color in painting. At the age of about fifteen he
entered the studio of Giovanni Bellini, at that time the greatest of
Venetian painters and one of the important contributors to the art of
this period. In this studio a group of young men, including Giorgione,
with whom Titian came to be on terms of intimate friendship, Giovanni
Palma, Lorenzo Lotto and Sebastiano Luciani, all destined to fame,
were brought together. Especially Titian and Giorgione broke away from
the older traditions of painting and became founders in modern art.
All of his long productive life of nearly 100 years, except for very
short visits elsewhere, Titian lived in Venice and did his marvellous
painting there. There are masterpieces by him that are acknowledged by
artists and critics to be among the greatest paintings we have. No one
has been more faithfully studied by art students in all the
generations since his time. Some of his Madonnas are among the most
beautiful in the world and bear comparison even with all but the very
finest of Raphael's. His "Entombment of Christ" in the Louvre is a
surpassing representation of this scene which so often appealed to
artists. The "Assumption" at the Academy in Venice is probably one of
the most visited of pictures in Italy and shows all the best
qualities, though some also of the defects, of the great Venetian.
Such pictures as the "Presentation of the Blessed Virgin," in the
Vatican at Rome, show how Titian faithfully developed his best powers
until he arrived at the very climax of artistic expression. No more
thoroughly satisfying representations of religious themes were
probably ever made. While he could make wonderful pictures on a large
scale, and his compositions have always been the subject of loving
study, some of his smaller pictures are almost more beautiful than any
he has made, and his series of small Madonnas are only equalled and
very few of them surpassed even by Raphael's treatment of the same
theme.
As a portrait painter, however, Titian almost excelled his {64} work
as a religious painter. His series of portraits of the Emperor Charles
V are among the world's greatest portraits. His portrayals of Philip
II are thought by some even to surpass those of his father. Titian's
portraits of himself and his daughter are wonderful "counterfeit
presentments" of the real individuals. Indeed, the portraits of his
contemporaries left us by Titian have an eternal interest, and besides
being great works of art they are marvellously illuminating of the
human personalities depicted. They represent not merely a reproduction
of the features of the individual, but preserve for posterity the
character and the very soul. Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael have
surpassed him when they set themselves the same task. Van Dyke is his
equal in some respects, but much less satisfying. Rembrandt and
Velasquez are his peers, but there are those who think that he
combines the best qualities of both these great successors in the same
field to a noteworthy degree.
Besides his religious pictures and portraits, however, Titian
succeeded in painting some of the greatest representations of ancient
mythological lore that have ever been done. His much-admired picture
of the "Bacchanals" in Madrid and the still more famous "Bacchus and
Ariadne," so often now seen in copies, show how well he could enter
into the spirit of the old Olympian mythology. It was typical of the
Renaissance time in which he lived that he should thus be inspired by
Greek culture and religion. If we did not have from his hands so many
beautiful Christian devotional pictures, which never could have been
painted except by a man who was himself a believer in the religious
scenes and mysteries that he portrays, it would have been almost
impossible to believe, after a study of these pagan pictures, that he
could have retained a devout Christian piety and faith with such a
sympathetic appreciation and an intimate understanding of the
psychology of the old pagan myths. It was this combination, however,
that was perfectly possible to the great minds of the Renaissance
period. The greater they were like Titian, Michelangelo and Raphael,
the deeper was their faith, though the higher their power to portray
phases of religious feeling that might be considered so foreign to
their religious experience as to be quite out of {65} the range of
their sympathetic expression. Smaller men, influenced by Greek
mythology, became merely pagan, but the greater men retained their
faith in its completeness. The smaller men are so much more numerous
that we have the tradition of the Renaissance making men pagan, but
this is not true with regard to the geniuses of the time.
Titian, as Delacroix said in the article in his _"Dictionnaire des
Beaux Arts,"_ is one of those who came closest to the spirit of
antiquity. The great modern artist and art connoisseur did not
hesitate to declare that nowhere, unless perhaps in such great
monuments of antiquity as the sculptures of the Pantheon, can
antiquity be so well understood as in the pictures of Titian. Yet this
is the painter whom the bishops and ecclesiastics, the monks and
friars and the people of his time, desirous of expressing what was
deepest in their sense of devotion and piety, sought after most
eagerly, because of his wonderful ability to express all the charm of
religious personages and all the power of religious feelings. He has
all the many-sidedness of the Renaissance, yet without any loss of the
mediaeval power to inspire profound Christian feeling.
A very great school of art of the Renaissance was that which took its
rise in Southern Tuscany and the Romagna, of whom the three best-known
representatives are Piero dei Franceschi, Luca Signorelli and Melozzo
da Forli. Piero's influence on Perugino has already been spoken of.
Berenson declares him "hardly inferior to Giotto and Masaccio in
feeling for tactile values; in communicating values of force he is the
rival of Donatello; he was perhaps the first to use effects of light
for their direct tonic or subduing and soothing qualities; and,
finally judged as an illustrator, it may be questioned whether another
painter has ever presented a world more complete and convincing, has
ever had an ideal more majestic, or ever endowed things with more
heroic significance."
Piero's two pupils, Melozzo and Signorelli, each of them starting, as
Berenson says, with the heritage Piero left him, yet following the
promptings of his own temperament and the guidance of his own genius,
touched excellence in his own splendid way. Melozzo was the grander
temperament, {66} Signorelli the subtler and deeper mind. Visitors to
Loretto, who see the music-making angels in a cupola there, are likely
to be surprised into an appreciation of the power of the painter to
express something of the witchery of music. Berenson says of them:
[Footnote 6] "Almost they are French Gothic in their witchery, and
they listen to their own playing as if to charm out the most secret
spirit of their instruments. And you can see what a sense Signorelli
had for refined beauty, if, when seated with Guido's 'Aurora,' you
will rest your eyes on a Madonna by him in the same pavilion of the
Rospigliosi Palace."
[Footnote 6: _Op. cit_, p. 81.]
One of the very great artists of the Renaissance, who has come into
his own of appreciation in recent years again, is Antonio Allegri,
generally known as Correggio, from the small town near Mantua in which
he was born. He is one of the most surprising figures in the history
of art. So far as we know, he had no teachers and no pupils. He seems
never to have visited any of the cities in which in his time
(1494-1524) so many great pictures might have been seen, nor did he
seek to make the acquaintance of any of his great contemporaries. All
that we know of him was that he had "an uncle who painted, but was no
artist." He influenced the artists of the after-time in Italy almost
more than any of his contemporaries. By some he is placed among the
decadent or "sweet" school of Italian painting, and undoubtedly such
painters as Guido Reni and Carlo Dolci, who were for many centuries
more popular than the greater masters, were deeply influenced by him.
While so negligent of others' achievements in life he was destined to
form a school that attracted more attention from subsequent
generations than almost any of his contemporaries. His pictures
represent a climax of Italian religious art, and his painting of
angels and celestial beings, together with that of Fra Angelico two
generations before, serves to show how wonderfully the Italian
painters of this time were able to visualize spiritual conceptions.
[Illustration: CORREGGIO, MARRIAGE OF ST. CATHERINE (LOUVRE)]
Grimm, in his "Life of Michelangelo," says of Correggio: "As Parma,
where he (Correggio) painted, lies between Milan, Florence and Venice,
so does Correggio's painting represent a middle term between the
schools of these cities. Greater {67} than all who came after
Michelangelo, Leonardo and Raphael there are many qualities of his art
in which Correggio excels even these. Unlike the Venetians, he did not
neglect drawing; he embraced the whole of his art and made a distinct
advance."
Grimm goes as far as to say, "If we could think of streams flowing
together out of the genius of Raphael, Leonardo, Titian and
Michelangelo to form a new spirit, that spirit would be Correggio's.
He has the dreamy smiling sweetness of Leonardo, and to add an
external detail, his fate as to our absolute ignorance of his inner
and outer life; he has the joyous, radiant, uncreated quality of
Raphael with his brief life and its interruption in the very bloom of
it; he has the boldness of Michelangelo, his liking for unprecedented
attitudes and his power to reproduce them in marvellous
foreshortening; he has Titian's soft coloring and the gift to picture
the palpitating naked flesh as if the pulse was beating in it."
It is one of the world's greatest losses in art that he was cut off in
his prime at the early age of thirty, yet what we have from him shows
the supreme artist, and though we might have had further precious art
treasures, we could scarcely have had a completer revelation of his
genius.
Leigh Hunt, in his article on him in the "Catholic Encyclopaedia,"
emphasizes the far-reaching influence which Correggio's work had over
artists after his time and how deeply the principles of his art
prevailed in painting and sculpture in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries over all Italy and France.
"Correggio is the most skilful artist since the ancient Greeks in the
art of foreshortening; and, indeed, he was master of every technical
device in painting, being the first to introduce the rules of aerial
perspective. Radiant light floods his pictures and is so delicately
graded that it passes subtly into shade with that play of reflections
among the shadows which gives transparency in every modulation. This
is _chiaroscuro_. Even in Allegri's earliest works it was prominent,
and later he became the acknowledged master of it. His refined feeling
made Correggio paint the nude as though from a vision of ideal beauty;
the sensuous in life he made pure and beautiful; earthly pleasures he
spiritualized, and gave expression of mental beauty, the very
culmination of true art. His angel pictures {68} are a cry of _Sursum
Corda_. The age in which he lived and worked was partly responsible
for this; but his modesty, his retiring disposition, his fondness for
solitude, his ideal homelife, his piety and the fellowship of the
Benedictine monks contributed far more to it."
A very great painter of Columbus' Century, though he is usually
thought of as of a later period, was Jacopo Robusti, whom we know as
Tintoretto. According to Ridolfi, himself born almost on the date of
Tintoretto's death, the artist was born in 1512, though later dates up
to 1520 have been assumed for him. Like many of the other great
workers of the Renaissance, he too lived to be at least seventy-five
and probably well beyond eighty. The same store of energy that enabled
him to accomplish his work gave him length of days. He was the son of
a dyer, and, as a boy, was fond of drawing, finding the colors used by
his father valuable for practice in painting. While he lived at a time
when many of the great painters of the Renaissance were at work, he
was not deeply influenced by them, but fortunately for himself
developed his own genius. He is famous for his drawing, his power over
which he owed to dissection, drawing from life and from models draped
and lighted in various ways, some of them suspended from the ceiling
so as to get the correct prospective of flying figures. He invented an
ingenious device, a rectangular framework with strings across it
which, held before the eye, taught how to measure the proportions
accurately. While Venetian painters generally are famous for their
coloring, Tintoretto is the master of them all in drawing and one of
the world's greatest artists in Italy.
[Illustration: GOSSAERT, VIRGIN AND CHILD JESUS (ITALIAN INFLUENCE
OVER FLEMISH)]
Like every other great worker of the Renaissance, almost without
exception, he had a passion for work and has left us an enormous
amount of finished painting. Some of his paintings, as, for instance,
the "Bacchus and Ariadne," are looked upon as the greatest of their
kind. Some of his great paintings in the palace of the doges at Venice
have been a favorite study of artists ever since his time. Ruskin
considered him one of the greatest painters who ever lived and has
made his name and work familiar to English-speaking peoples. Probably
no one has ever dared to attempt the solution of so many {69} problems
in painting as Tintoretto, and no one has solved them better. He
deeply influenced his own generation and has influenced every
generation since that has had true critical spirit and appreciation
for art. It has been well said of him, and without exaggeration, that
he mastered every detail of his art. Ridolfi tells us his two favorite
subjects of study were the works of Titian and the reliefs of
Michelangelo. He wrote on the wall of his studio these words, _Il
disegno di Michelangelo e il colorito di Titiano_ (the drawing and
composition of Michelangelo and the coloring of Titian). These were
his ambitions. He as nearly accomplished this transcendent purpose as
perhaps it is possible to be done.
An eminent painter of the Venetian school at this time, who is usually
thought of as belonging to a later period, is Paolo Cagliari, better
known as Veronese. He was twenty-two years of age, however, before
Columbus' Century closed, and as he began his work very early in life
he had received some important commissions before he was twenty-five
years of age. He owes all his training to the great period at least.
His greatest picture, the "Marriage at Cana," was painted practically
within the decade after the close of our period. He was very fond of
huge compositions, and Tintoretto alone outdid him in the conception
of large pictures and the filling of large canvases. Like most of the
painters of the Renaissance, he was a man of tireless energy, as well
as sharing the facility that so many of them possessed; his very large
pictures did not serve to limit the number of his paintings to the
extent that might otherwise be expected. He was a master of decoration
and of the use of the sumptuous color that the Venetians had invented
because of their familiarity with pigments and the making of glass,
and no great decorative painter has equalled him in the effect
produced by this wealth of color. Already the decadence is beginning
and his great paintings lack feeling, and above all exhibit no trace
of religious feeling, though many of them are on religious subjects,
but they are splendid, unexcelled, cold triumphs of composition.
These great painters of the Renaissance, touched by the humanistic
spirit abroad in the world of their time and with the old Greek ideas
of the place of man as the very centre of {70} the universe, created a
new way of looking at men in their relation to the world around them.
They Hellenized their vision of men and stamped it upon the culture
and civilization of their time. Berenson has suggested in his "The
Central Italian Painters of the Renaissance" that they thus influenced
not only men's way of looking at men, but actually to some degree
transformed men themselves by the mirror they held before them. He
said: [Footnote 7]
[Footnote 7: Op. cit, p. 67.]
"The way of visualizing, affected by the artists, the humanists and
the ruling classes, could not help becoming universal. Who had the
power to break through this new standard of vision and, out of the
chaos of things, to select shapes more definitely expressive of
reality than those fixed by men of genius? No one had such power.
People had perforce to see things in that way and in no other, to
see only the shapes depicted, to love only the ideals presented. Nor
was this all. Owing to this subtle and most irresistible of all
forces, the unconscious habits of imitation, people soon ended
either by actually resembling the new ideals or, at all events,
earnestly endeavoring to be like them. The result has been that,
after five centuries of constant imitation of a type first presented
by Donatello and Masaccio, we have, as a race, come to be more like
that type than we ever were before. For there is no more curious
truth than the trite statement that nature imitates art. Art teaches
us not only what to see, but what to be."
[Illustration: VAN DER WEYDEN, MATER DOLOROSA]
{71}
CHAPTER V
PAINTING OUTSIDE OF ITALY
While it is the custom to think of our period, Columbus' Century, as
the time of the Renaissance, owing its inspiration to the rebirth of
Greek ideas into the modern world, it must not be forgotten that quite
apart from this there was a "great wind of the spirit" of art blowing
abroad at this epoch. The Renaissance is thought of as Italian, but
the Teutonic countries exhibit in Columbus' Century a great artistic
development at the beginning quite uninfluenced by the New Learning
that came from the Greek rebirth. Painting, sculpture, architecture
and the arts and crafts, all reached a climax of expression in the
Teutonic countries, especially in the latter half of the fifteenth
century, the evidence for which is to be seen in the monuments
preserved for us particularly in the Low Countries and in Southern
Germany.
Flemish art above all others reached a high level of perfection at
this time that has scarcely ever or anywhere been surpassed. The work
of the brothers Van Eyck, accomplished just before the opening of
Columbus' Century, paved the way for a great new development of art
and made their invention of painting in oil the favorite medium of
pictorial expression. After such a work as "The Adoration of the
Lamb," at Ghent, no one could doubt either of their genius as artists
or the future of the new mode in painting. Their pupil, Roger Van der
Weyden, did not excel his masters, but carried on worthily the
tradition which they had established, and passed on the torch which
they had lighted to successors whose fame was to be undying. Memling
is indeed a great master in painting, almost never excelled, seldom
equalled and representing a phase of art development quite independent
of the humanistic side of the Renaissance.
{72}
The wonderful decorations of the casket of St. Ursula in the Hospital
of St. John at Bruges, done just about the time of the discovery of
America, are not unworthy to be placed beside the greatest art of
Europe from any period. The almost more beautiful "Adoration of the
Magi" in the same place shows a minute finish in detail, a marvellous
power of composition, a charm of expression and a wonderful
application of colors which have not faded during all these four and a
half centuries, which deservedly place it among the world's supreme
artistic triumphs. What Giotto is at Padua in the Arena, and Fra
Angelico in San Marco at Florence, Memling is in the Hospital of St.
John at Bruges. The pictures must be seen in all the glory of their
unfading colors to be properly appreciated or to enable those who are
less familiar with the great work of the Netherlands painters to
understand the encomiums of critics; but even uncolored reproductions
give some idea of the charm of the originals.
Strange to say, because of the neglect of the biographical details of
their painters' lives by the Teutonic nations, even Memling's name has
not been quite certain until comparatively recent years. Bruges was
one of the great merchant towns of this time, wealthy, populous, busy,
enterprising, ambitious, the home of merchant princes who were as
generous in their patronage of art as the ecclesiastics or nobility of
Italy, or as our own millionaires, though they believed in the
creation of new works of art especially adapted to their surroundings
rather than the collection of those that had an established
reputation. During the first half of the fifteenth century Brabant had
produced the group of famous artists whom we have mentioned, most of
whom worked at some time or other in Bruges. As Weale, himself an
associate of the Royal Academy of Belgium, says in his "Hans Memlinc":
[Footnote 8] "Of none of all the many celebrated men who made this
town their home has Bruges more reason to be proud than of Hans
Memlinc." While his works remained, however, the personal memory of
him was lost, and hence it is only in our time that it has been quite
sure that the initial letter of his name should be "M" and not "H,"
though the other form is often used by writers about art, and that the
final letter should probably be "c" and not "g" though in English the
latter terminal has been most frequent.
[Footnote 8: London: George Bell & Sons, 1907.]
[Illustration: QUENTIN MATSYS, LEGEND OF ST. ANN (CENTRE)]
{73}
It was only in 1889 that Father Dussart, S.J., discovered in the
Public Library of St. Omer in a manuscript by the historian, James De
Meyere, an extract from a diary, in which the death of John Memmelinc,
the painter, is placed on the 11th of August, 1494. He was probably
born about 1435, or a little before, so that his accomplishment as a
painter was all in the first half of Columbus' Century. Memling is the
greatest of all these early painters of the Netherlands in his
portraits, and yet there are many religious pictures which are full of
the devotion of the best of the Italians and wonderful in their
composition, in their solution of the technical problems of painting
and their marvellous power of expression which show him to be one of
the great painters of the world. His great picture, which has been
called "Christ the Light of the World," is a triumph in every mode of
the painter's expression. His shrine of St. Ursula, an oblong
tabernacle of carved oak with gabled ends, for which Memling did a
series of miniatures, is one of the most beautiful accomplishments of
this kind in the world. In very contracted panels, Memling has placed
hundreds of beautiful faces and details of architecture, shipping and
water scenes that must be seen to be appreciated. "It has been said
that Van Eyck, even when painting religious subjects, only awakes
earthly ideas, whilst Memling, even when painting earthly scenes,
kindles thoughts of heavenly things. It is easy to see by his
paintings that he was indeed a man humble and pure of heart, who, when
the arts were beginning to abdicate their position as handmaids of the
Church in order to minister to the pleasures of men, preserved his
love for Christian tradition, and in earnest simplicity painted what
he believed and venerated as he conceived and saw it in his
meditations. There is no affectation, no seeking after novelties, no
mixture of pagan ideas in his works."
Memling's contemporary, Dirk Bouts, deserves scarcely less praise, and
Quentin Matsys is another of the genius painters of the time. The
story of his rise from blacksmith to painter is only a good
illustration, whether legendary or not, of the {74} closeness of the
mechanical arts, those of the goldsmith and the silversmith
particularly, but of all the smiths, to the liberal arts of painting
and sculpture. The divorce of these higher and lower arts from each
other always leads to decadence, not alone in the mechanical, but also
in the liberal arts. The goldsmith or silversmith in the Low
Countries, in Italy, in Nuremberg, easily became a sculptor in the
highest sense of the term, and not infrequently turned his attention
successfully to other arts. It was an ideal condition, showing how
deeply culture had penetrated, and whenever something of it at least
does not exist the liberal arts are sure to be artificial and
borrowed, not native and genuine.
Memling's successors in the Flemish tradition of painting maintained
their master's distinction, and even when lacking in that genius which
alone enables men to do great work did painting that is far above the
mediocre, and that served to spread the spirit of culture among the
people. Lucas van Leyden, in a short life of less than forty years,
did some beautiful things that shall always keep his memory alive.
Gerard David falls only short of the work of such great contemporaries
as Memling himself. David's pupil, Moestart, nobly continues the
tradition of his master. Michiel Coxcie and others do good work before
the end of Columbus' Century, which, in a country less dowered with
great artists than Flanders, would have secured them places of highest
distinction in the history of national art.
The generation of Flemish painters after Memling who studied in Italy
represent among them some great artists worthy to be mentioned even
beside their Italian masters, though these are confessedly the great
Renaissance artists. Justus of Ghent is the first of these, an actual
contemporary of Memling and a man who not only learned from but also
in turn deeply influenced the Italians with whom he was brought in
contact. Jan van Mabuse-Gossaert, Bernard van Orley, Blondeel and
Gerard David were touched by the spirit of the Italian Renaissance and
its great painters, yet preserved the native fire of their genius and
displayed national characteristics which have deservedly given them a
place quite apart from the Italian schools. Some of their paintings
are among those the world knows best and values most highly, and they
have gained in prestige in later years as the knowledge and
appreciation of Teutonic art has spread.
[Illustration: VAN ORLEY, DR. ZELLE]
{75}
Great as was the distinction and achievement of the Low Countries, at
this time it was not so far superior to Southern Germany as to eclipse
its brilliancy. What Bruges was to the Low Countries, and especially
Flanders as an art capital at the beginning of Columbus' Century,
Nuremberg was to Southern Germany. The city well deserves the name of
Northern Florence, for all the arts flourished luxuriantly and the
monuments attest, even better than any traditions, how much was
accomplished here for art. Her greatest artist in this, very like so
many of his Italian contemporaries, was not limited in his powers of
expression to any one narrow mode, for Albert Duerer was painter,
designer, engraver, but also like Leonardo a mathematician, and like
Michelangelo a writer. Duerer's place as a painter is too well known to
need special description here. He is now acknowledged to be one of the
world's greatest artists, worthy to be mentioned in the same breath
even with his supremely great contemporaries, Raphael, Leonardo,
Titian, Botticelli and Correggio. In recent years he has come to be
more generally known. His pious pictures have a certain Teutonic
literalness added to their mystical quality that gives them
distinction.
He is one of the great group of cultured intellectual people who made
Nuremberg so famous at this time. While his art has many essential
German characteristics, it is much more than national, though it shows
very well the high standard of excellence that the German painters of
this time had attained. His visits to Italy and the Netherlands
broadened his views, developed his artistic sense, refined his taste
and did much for him, yet the essential German character of his
painting and his absolute individuality as an artist remained. Some of
his Madonnas are quite as charming in their way, though very different
from the Italian, as those of the great Renaissance painters in the
peninsula. His "Adoration of the Magi" will bear comparison with the
masterpieces even of Italy and the Netherlands, and his Madonnas,
though of German type, have a sweetness all their own. In his second
period some of his {76} painting at Venice shows how deeply he was
influenced by the Venetian colorists and yet was never merely an
imitator.
[Illustration: DUeRER, TITLE PAGE OF LIFE OF BLESSED VIRGIN
(WOODCUT, 1511)]
Duerer did fine work of real artistic quality, not only in painting,
but also in wood engraving, and afterwards in engraving on copper.
Prints from his woodcuts or copperplates still command high prices,
and indeed it is probable that only those of Rembrandt are valued more
highly. He brought these two modes of art to great perfection. He was
a fine craftsman, as well as an artist, and both etching and wood {77}
engraving owe much to his inventive ability and handicraftsmanship.
As might be expected of this intimate friend of Wilibald Pirkheimer,
he was a scholar as well as an artist, and we have from him three
books, one on the proportions of the human figure, which shows how
carefully he studied the essentials of his art; one on geometry and
one on the art of fortification. Like Leonardo he felt his ability as
an engineer, and like Raphael and Michelangelo was widely interested
not only in every mode of art, but all the intellectual interests of
his time. No more than the Italians he was not a narrow specialist in
any sense of the word, and nothing shows so clearly as his career and
achievements how much the spirit of genius was abroad at this time in
Europe everywhere, lifting men up to heights of accomplishment that
had scarcely been possible before.
Besides Duerer, the great painters of South Germany were the Holbeins,
father and son. Hans Holbein the elder first came into prominence at
Augsburg as a partner to his brother Sigmund, a painter, none of whose
works have come down to us. His early works are nearly all on the
Passion and show the influence of his studies of the Passion Plays, so
frequently given all over South Germany at this time. Early in the
sixteenth century he came under Italian influence and painted some
pictures that, while naive and primitive, exhibit evidence of high
artistic ability. His fame was eclipsed entirely by his son, Hans
Holbein, known as the younger, though there is no doubt at all of the
influence exerted by Holbein the father on the art of his period, and
his sketchbooks are precious material for the biography and customs of
his contemporaries.
His son left Augsburg about 1515 to become an illustrator of books at
Basel. The first patron of the younger Holbein is said to have been
Erasmus, for whom, shortly after his arrival, he illustrated an
edition of the _"Encomium Moriae"_ by pen-and-ink sketches, which are
now in the Museum at Basel. After some five years of work as an
illustrator, Hans began to attract attention by his portrait drawings.
Some of these, as J. A. Crowe in his article on Holbein in the ninth
edition of {78} the "Encyclopaedia Britannica" says, are "finished
with German delicacy and with a power and subtlety of hand seldom
rivalled in any school." That he could paint with almost equal
distinction his portrait of Boniface Amerbach, painted in 1519,
furnishes ample evidence, for it is "acknowledged to be one of the
most complete examples of smooth and transparent handling that Holbein
ever executed" (Crowe).
Art was gradually being pushed out in the German countries, however,
and above all there was no opportunity for religious painting, which
used to form the chief source of income and of inspiration, as well as
the principal resource of painters before this, as it continued to be
in the Latin countries. Besides, the religious revolution had come to
occupy men's minds with disputes about religious subjects, and
interest in art further declined. How well Holbein could have painted
religious pictures is very well illustrated by the famous altar-piece
of the Burgomaster Meyer, with his wives and children, in prayer
before the Blessed Virgin. Few Madonnas are more impressive than this,
but now the beautiful Mother of God was no longer an object of
reverence. Holbein could get no further commissions of this kind, and
was pitifully reduced, it is said, even to the painting of escutcheons
for a living. Erasmus, whose portrait he had so often made in many
different positions, compassionated his poverty and lack of occupation
and sent him with a note of introduction to Sir Thomas More. More
appreciated him at once, had him paint his own portrait and those of
his family and engaged the interest of the nobility in him.
[Illustration: CLOUET, FRANCOIS, ELIZABETH OF AUSTRIA, WIFE OF
CHARLES IX (LOUVRE) ]
Holbein executed portraits of many of the prominent nobility of
England, and after two happy years returned to Basel, taking to
Erasmus the sketch of More's family, which is still to be seen in the
gallery of that city, being indeed one of the precious treasures of
it. With the money made in London, Holbein purchased a house and made
the charming portraits of his wife and children for it, but the next
year witnessed the fury of the Iconoclasts, who, in their so-called
reforming zeal, destroyed in one day almost all the religious pictures
at Basel. It is not surprising to find him two years later back in
England, where the merchants of the Steel Yard gave him a series {79}
of commissions to paint portraits and he was employed also by the
Court to provide the famous series of portraits of prospective Queens
for Henry VIII. Some of these make it very dear that he could do
portraits absolutely without flattery. {80} The series of drawings by
him at Windsor form one of the most precious treasures of the English
Crown. He was busy painting a picture of Henry VIII, "Confirming the
Privileges of the Barber Surgeons," still to be seen in their building
in London, when he sickened of the plague and died in 1543. Crowe
says, "Had he lived his last years in Germany he would not have
changed the current which decided the fate of painting in that
country; he would but have shared the fate of Duerer and others, who
merely prolonged the agony of art amidst the troubles of the
Reformation."
Everywhere a great spirit entered into art and produced a series of
artists with an originality and a power of expression that has given
them a place in the history of art. The first important development of
the modern period in France came among the illuminators of books and
is well illustrated by the work of Jean Fouquet of Tours, the Court
Painter of Louis XI. I have mentioned some of the books illuminated by
him in the chapter on Books and Prints, and a copy of one of his
illuminations from the famous Livy manuscript will be found there. He
did a series of larger works which entitles him to the name of
painter, and his portraits are worthy of the time. Bourdischon and
Perreal, the first a painter of historical subjects and portraits in
the reign of Louis XI, and the second, attached to the army of Charles
VIII in his Italian expedition, painted many battle scenes. These
first French artists were little influenced by Italian art, and then
come a group, Jean Cousin and the Clouets, especially Francois, who is
often called Janet, who, though under Italian influence to some
extent, yet showed, especially taken in connection with the sculptors
Colombe and Jean Goujon, that France possessed artists capable of
forming a native school. Clouet's portrait of Elizabeth of Austria,
wife of Charles IX, is worthy of the great portrait painters of this
time.
{81}
[Illustration: NAVARRETE, ST. PETER AND ST. PAUL (ESCURIAL)]
In Spain, as in France, there was a development of art in Columbus'
Century that owes nothing to external influence and shows the
originality of the time. As early as 1454 one Sanchez de Castro, "the
Morning Star" of Andalusia, painted a _retablo_ in the Cathedral of
Seville and a fresco of St. Julian in the Church of the same city. He
was still painting in 1516, so {82} that he must have enjoyed as long
a life as many of the great Italian artists of the time. Juan de
Borgona was working at Toledo in 1495 at a series of paintings which
recall Perugino, yet have an originality of their own. It is not
surprising, then, to find Luis de Morales, born about the beginning of
the sixteenth century, called "the Divine" and hailed as the first
Spaniard whose genius and good fortune have obtained him a place among
the great painters of Europe. One of the master painters of this time
is Juan Fernandez Navarrete, most of whose pictures were painted after
the close of our century, but who had passed some twenty-five years of
his life in it and been subjected to its influence and received his
education from it. He is extremely interesting, because his nickname
_el Mudo_, the Dumb, recalls the fact that he was one of the
unfortunate deaf who, for lack of hearing, cannot speak, and yet
succeeded in developing a great mode of expression for himself. Such
opportunities for the defective are supposed to be quite modern, but
as a matter of fact, in spite of difficulties and obstacles, genius
usually finds a mode of expression. Like Italy, Spain has its schools
of painting, and the school of Andalusia came into prominence under
Luis de Vargas, "the best painter of the Sevillan line from Sanchez de
Castro to Velasquez" (Sterling, "The Artists of Spain"). His earliest
known work was completed just about the end of Columbus' Century. It
is the altar-piece of the Chapel of the Nativity in the Cathedral at
Seville, so often admired. Vargas is famous for his portraits, "for
the grandeur and simplicity of his design, his correct drawing and
fresh coloring and the great purity and grace in his female heads."
[Footnote 9] Pablo de Cespedes, born toward the end of our period,
doing his work afterwards, is very well known.
[Footnote 9: Painting, Spanish and French, Gerard W. Smith, among
the Art Handbooks.]
{83}
[Illustration: CESPEDES, THE LAST SUPPER (CATHEDRAL, CORDOVA)]
In the School of Valentia, Juan de Juanes is famous for his religious
pictures. His vigor and variety of invention are wonderful and his
coloring is splendid. His numerous faces of Christ were unrivalled,
the best perhaps being that with the Sacred Cup. His pencil was wholly
dedicated to religion, and, {84} according to the tradition, he
habitually communicated and confessed before taking a sacred picture.
He had two daughters, Dorothea and Marguerita, who are famous in the
history of Spanish art, typical, illustrious women of the Spanish
Renaissance.
[Illustration: BERTOLDO DI GIOVANNI, BATTLE (BARGELLO)]
{85}
CHAPTER VI
SCULPTURE IN ITALY
Columbus' Century was destined to see the creation of some of the
finest sculpture since the time of the Greeks. Probably in no
department of art does this period stand out as so surely surpassing
any other period of modern times, or indeed any time except the
Periclean, as in its power to furnish great examples of plastic art.
Triumphs of sculpture were accomplished in every medium--stone,
bronze, terra-cotta, wood and the precious metals. The eve of the
century saw the making of some very great sculptures, which portended
the wonderful development that was to come. It was in 1447 that
Ghiberti completed the second pair of doors for the Baptistery at
Florence, which have been the admiration of the world ever since.
After this it was easy to understand that there was no development of
artistic expression in plastic work that might not be expected. All
the expectations possible were realized in the succeeding hundred
years.
Columbus' Century was ushered in with as great a triumph in sculpture
and by the work of a master as great in his maturity, which came just
then, as Fra Angelico was in painting. Fra Angelico, however, had been
but little touched by the Renaissance spirit of classicism, while
Donatello, the familiar name for Donato di Niccolo di Betti Pardi,
whom the classic impulse was to carry ahead of all contemporary
artists and indeed to make a model and a subject of study for all
succeeding students of sculpture, was born even before the close of
the fourteenth century, but like so many of the distinguished artists
of the Renaissance period, lived a long life of persistent work and
great achievement, and the most important part of that work came after
1450.
His greatest triumph, the monument to Gatamelata, was set up in Padua
in 1453. There are two equestrian statues {86} that are conceded by
all the world to be supreme works of art, and copies of which are to
be found in many museums throughout our civilization. One of these is
Donatello's "Gatamelata" and the other the "Colleoni," by Verrocchio,
who was a disciple of Donatello. The earlier sculptor had seen some of
the equestrian monuments of the Roman times and had wondered whether
he could not imitate them, or at least accomplish the same purpose.
Undaunted by the difficulties as men seem ever to have been at this
time, he faced not only the problem of making the model that would
express his ideas, but of putting it into the bronze form that would
make it imperishable. He had to master all the problems of equine
anatomy, but above all he had to make himself familiar with the
details of the technique of the founders' art so as to master the
process of casting so large a work absolutely in the round.
Practically he had to discover a great many of these technical points
for himself, and he had to invent methods of accomplishing his
purpose. To most men at any time this would have seemed an almost
impossible achievement. They would have been discouraged from
attempting it. There were many simpler forms of his art that he might
practise, and not take on his shoulders all the technics of the bronze
foundry, but Donatello undisturbedly went on his way and accomplished
his purpose.
There is nothing more interesting and at the same time nothing more
characteristic of this period of discovery and a achievement--indeed,
it is a worthy prelude to Columbus' Century--than the fact that the
very first equestrian statue, made in the modern times when all the
difficulties, material as well as artistic, were heaped up before the
sculptor, is one of the greatest monuments of that kind in the world's
history. Only the "Colleoni," made a half a century later, surpasses,
if indeed that is to be conceded, yet this was the very first attempt.
This is not so surprising, however, if one realizes the significance
of other work of this time. Within a half a century of the invention
of oil painting some of the greatest masterpieces of that mode came
into existence; within less than half a century of the invention of
printing, some of the most beautiful books that have ever been made
were printed. There has been a {87} tendency in our time, as a result
of much discussion of evolution, to think that such triumphs of
achievement come only after long evolution and as the climax of a
prolonged process of development. On the contrary genius at any time
in the world's history takes hold of a mode of expression for the
first time and secures a triumph in it that will be the envy and
admiration of all succeeding generations.
[Illustration: ROSSELINO, ANTONIO, MADONNA]
While Donatello's success in this huge equestrian work might be
expected to stamp his genius as much more fitted for monumental
sculpture than any other mode of his favorite art, there is scarcely
any phase of sculpture which he has not illustrated beautifully. The
very spirit of youth is caught and fixed in imperishable bronze in his
"St. George." There is probably no more successful attempt at the
artistic rendering of the "little poor man of God" than Donatello's
sculptured expression of him in his statue of "St. Francis" in the
Church of St. Antony of Padua.
It was Donatello who, according to M. Muntz, the German authority on
the history of sculpture, recovered the child from antiquity and gave
it back to art. Some of his baby faces are among the most beautiful
ever made, and yet without any of the sickly sentimentality that would
make them pall. Their bodies are alive, their draperies cling or float
as they touch their wearers, or are caught up by the air. Only his
great contemporary, Luca della Robbia, has rivalled him in this
regard, and it is doubtful whether even he has excelled him, though
the world as a rule knows della Robbia for his baby faces and thinks
of Donatello as having accomplished more monumental work. Donatello's
"Bambino Gesu," infinitely human, and his boyish "St. John the
Baptist," precociously serious, in the Church of the Vanchetoni,
Florence, where they are seldom seen unless particularly looked for,
are charming examples of Donatello's power of expression in child
faces.
In Donatello, as in so many of these artists of Columbus' Century, the
man is almost more interesting than his work. While at Padua doing the
"Gatamelata," Vasari tells us that his works were held to be miracles,
and they were praised so much that finally the master resolved
characteristically to return to Florence. He naively remarked one day,
"If I stayed {88} here any longer I should forget all I have ever
known through being so much praised. I shall willingly return home,
where I get censured continually; for such censure gives occasion for
study and brings as a consequence greater glory." His end was very
sad. He, whose hands had accomplished so much, was stricken with
paralysis and yet lived on for years. His pupils, with whom the great
master was a favorite, took care of him, and even to the end took his
suggestions, worked out his ideas and brought their work to him for
criticism. Galileo, a century later unable to see after having seen
farther into the heavens than any other; Beethoven, unable to hear
after having written some of the most divinely beautiful music ever
conceived, may be compared to Donatello, with his useless skilful
hands.
Even this sad fate did not sour him, however, but only made him
tenderer to those who needed help. He had no near relatives, and some
distant connections, hearing that his end was near, and as Hope Rea
tells in his "Donatello" (London: George Bell & Sons), to which I am
indebted for most of the details of this sketch, reminded him of their
existence and begged him to leave them a small property which he
possessed near Prato. "I cannot consent to that, relations mine," he
answered them, "because I wish, as indeed seems to me to be
reasonable, to leave it to the peasant who has labored so long upon
it, and not to you who have never done anything in connection with it
and indeed wish for it as some recompense for your visit to me. Go, I
give you my blessing." The epigram, with which old Giorgio Vasari ends
his all too short appreciation of the great master, seems the most
fitting close that could be made to any notice of his life, "O lo
spirito di Donato opera nel Buonarroto, o quello del Buonarroto
anticipo di operare in Donato" ("Either the spirit of Donatello
wrought again in Buonarotti, or the genius of Buonarotti had
pre-existence in Donatello.")
Among the great artists, in the highest sense of that word, and one of
the great sculptors of this period must be reckoned Luca della Robbia,
with whose name there are naturally associated the names of others of
this family, and particularly Andrea. Luca was chosen as one of the
sculptors to execute {89} portions of the decorative work of the Duomo
at Florence. He did one of the famous _cantorias_, the two sculptured
marble singing galleries which are unfortunately no longer in the
Duomo itself, but in the museum at the Eastern end of the great
church. This was finished in 1438, when Luca, whose years run
coincident with the century, was thirty-eight years of age. Among the
artists from whom the Florentine officials might have chosen for the
execution of these singing galleries was also Donatello, who actually
modelled the other of the pair, and Ghiberti, since famous for the
great doors of the Baptistery. It is sufficient to say that when Luca
della Robbia's singing gallery was finished, the Florentines realized
very well that no mistake had been made in giving him the execution of
it, even though he had such great rivals.
This is almost the only great work in marble that we have from Luca
della Robbia. He was a scientist, as well as an artist, and he was
very much interested in artistic glazed work. He devoted himself to
making this as perfect as possible and succeeded in adding this as a
wonderful new medium to sculpture. Like so many other of the artists,
painters and sculptors of this time, he was originally a goldsmith,
but became ambitious of doing higher things than those usually
committed to the craftsmen. Vasari tells us that he carved all day and
drew all night, keeping his feet warm through the long winter evenings
by covering them up in a basketful of carpenter shavings. He worked at
the glazing of terra-cotta with the idea at first apparently of
preserving his clay models by baking them.
Working in this new medium he brought to the execution of the models
for it all his genius as a sculptor and succeeded in accomplishing
some of the most beautiful results. He developed the medium so as to
secure charming color, creamy white figures that stand out from a
cloudy blue background, with a glaze that is perfect and joints that
are almost invisible. It is only in comparatively recent years that a
due meed of appreciation has been accorded to della Robbia's work once
more, though his contemporaries valued him at his true worth, but in
compensation for the neglect his pieces are now among the most costly
works of art whenever they turn up at public {90} sales. While
devoting himself to the new artistic modes, he accepted commissions in
both bronze and marble for the embellishment of Florence, and the
bronze doors of the sacristy of the Duomo are his, as well as certain
reliefs in marble on the Campanile.
"In fact," as Hope Rea says in his "Tuscan and Venetian Artists,"
[Footnote 10] "the total amount of work produced by him in the middle
twenty years of his life shows him to have been one of those strenuous
laborers in art, the like of whom have hardly been seen before or
since the years of the Renaissance." Luca never married, but he gave
every opportunity to his nephew, Andrea della Robbia, who was an apt
pupil, but who confined himself practically entirely to the new style
invented by his uncle. In spite of what might be expected, the young
man, with the advantage of his uncle's training and the possession of
his uncle's secrets, did not do better work, though the amount of it
that he turned out made the della Robbia terra-cotta an important part
of Florentine art. In his hands, and those of his son Giovanni, what
had been as pure an art as any form of sculpture came to be merely a
decorative craft. Andrea's many beautiful pieces, however, and
especially the well-known "Bambine," the swaddled infant medallions of
the Hospital of the Innocents, have been very popular at all times and
have entered into renewed popularity in our day. The great series of
incidents of St. Francis' life, executed by Andrea for the Franciscan
monastery of La Verna, represents the climax of his art work. He was
thoroughly sympathetic with the early Franciscan traditions and he
expressed the details of them beautifully.
[Footnote 10: "The Tuscan and Venetian Artists: Their Thought and
Work," by Hope Rea. London: J. M. Dent & Co., 1904.]
[Illustration: DONATELLO. GATAMELATA]
One of the greatest of the sculptors of the Renaissance, who must
indeed be reckoned among the greatest artists of all times, is
Leonardo da Vinci's teacher, Andrea del Verrocchio. He was one of the
wonderful Florentine artists whose genius was recognized by Lorenzo
the Magnificent and was given the opportunity to express his artistic
conceptions worthily by this liberal patron of the arts and
literature. Three of his great {91} works, the tomb of Piero and
Giovanni de Medici in the Church of San Lorenzo; his "David," which is
in the National Museum, the Bargello in Florence and the "Child
Holding a Dolphin," now in the courtyard of the Palazzo Vecchio, were
all three executed for Lorenzo. These are all in bronze, but with the
versatility of the men of his time, Verrocchio could express himself
in other media just as charmingly. Michel has said of the terra-cotta
"Madonna" made for the Hospital of Santa Maria Novella that in it
"supreme distinction of thought is combined with the most scrupulous
observation of nature." The famous marble bust of a "Flower Girl" is
in the Bargello. A silver _basso-rilievo_, the "Beheading of John the
Baptist," is now in the Cathedral Museum at Florence.
His two masterpieces are "The Incredulity of St. Thomas" and the
statue of Colleoni, the celebrated _condottiere_ who had commanded the
Venetian troops. Both of these are in bronze. Little as the deep
feeling of the scene between Christ and the doubting Thomas might seem
apt to lend itself to expression in sculpture, Verrocchio has
succeeded in making an extremely beautiful and touching work of art.
The Divine Humanity, urging Thomas the doubter to put his hand into
His pierced side, is a wonderful realization of one of the most
pathetic of incidents. The triumph of Verrocchio's genius, however, is
the "Colleoni." It is probably the greatest equestrian statue ever
made. His contemporaries declared that Leonardo da Vinci's figure of
the Duke of Milan on horseback surpassed it. Sometimes doubt is
expressed as to whether Donatello's "Gatamelata" does not rival it.
That question must be left for great artists and sculptors to decide,
and in the meantime there is no doubt at all that Verrocchio was one
of the greatest sculptors who ever lived. Burckhardt declared that "we
have a right to call this equestrian statue the finest in the world."
Unfortunately Verrocchio was seized with a chill while casting it and
died at the early age of forty-three, or we might have had some still
more wonderful work from him. He is a typical many-sided genius of the
Renaissance, though in sculpture particularly only two, perhaps three,
of his greatest contemporaries ever equalled him; it is even doubtful
if they {92} have excelled his "Colleoni," yet everything that he ever
did was an advance on his previous accomplishment. His disciple,
Leopardi, who finished the casting of the "Colleoni," is another great
sculptor of the time who, in any other period, would be looked upon as
a supreme artist. He has shone with reflected glory, besides, for his
part in the "Colleoni," though it is very doubtful whether any but
very small credit is due to him for the completion of this work which
Verrocchio had left in such a state that but little was required to
make it what it had been ever since, one of the world's greatest
monuments of sculpture.
A great sculptor of the Renaissance, whose career presents many other
features of interest, however, which have made him famous, is
Benvenuto Cellini. He was born in 1500 and, like many of the artists
and most of the sculptors of the time, began his life work as an
apprentice to a goldsmith. After a troubled early manhood in Rome and
other Italian cities, during which he executed some medals that are
among the best of their kind ever made, and various ornamental pieces
in the precious metals, he was for a time at the court of Francis I.
Afterwards he worked in Florence, lending his genius to the
fortification of the city during the war with Siena. While his career
is entirely exceptional among the great artists of the time it is
often taken for a type of the restless, rather unmoral than immoral,
character that was supposed to be produced by the paganizing influence
of the New Learning. The true types of Columbus' Century among the
artists, however, are such men as Raphael, Leonardo and Michelangelo,
deeply intent on their work, anxious only for the opportunity to
accomplish high artistic purpose and without any of that restless
unmorality that is at least supposed to have characterized Cellini. It
would be much nearer the truth to point to the lives of such men as
Fra Angelico or Fra Bartolommeo, happy in their monastery homes, or
Correggio, who spent his time so peacefully with the religious of the
little town in which he lived, than to appeal to Benvenuto's chequered
stormy career as typical of the Renaissance.
Cellini's autobiography, as great a work of imaginative art, very
probably, as any that he ever executed in plastic materials, has
attracted as much attention in literature as his great {93} sculptures
have in art. His name, then, has become familiar to many who know
nothing about the intimate personal careers of the great artists of
the time and who will in all good faith continue to draw their
conclusions as to the character of the men of the Renaissance from
Cellini's rather boastful proclamation of his successful vices, though
this exactly represents the exception which proves the rule to be the
opposite. In spite of his forbidding picture of himself he had moments
of intense religious feeling and highest inspiration. Anyone who has
seen his famous "Christ" in marble in the Escurial will not be likely
to think that he was entirely lacking in deep religious feeling. His
famous bronze group of "Perseus holding the Head of Medusa," to which
deservedly the Florentines have given a distinguished place in front
of the old ducal palace at Florence, is one of the masterpieces of
modern sculpture. W. M. Rossetti spoke of it in his article in the
"Encyclopaedia Britannica" as "a work full of the fire of genius and
the grandeur of a terrible beauty. One of the most typical and
unforgettable monuments of the Italian Renaissance." His story of the
casting of this great monument shows the difficulties under which the
sculptors of the time labored, and yet how triumphantly they overcame
technical obstacles and made great works of art.
While so great as a sculptor in monumental work, Cellini never thought
art objects of small size beneath his attention, and like Raphael,
willing to make the cartoons for the tapestries of the Sistine Chapel
and composing great pictorial scenes as their subjects, so Cellini,
with a true Renaissance artistic spirit, modelled beautifully any and
every form of work in metal. He modelled flagons, bells and even rings
and jewels, designed coins and medals for the Papal mint and for the
Medici at Florence. It has been said that everything minted under his
direction attained the highest excellence. His work in _alto-rilievo_
was as fine as that in _basso-rilievo_. All over Europe there are
well-authenticated specimens of smaller pieces from his hands, a bell
in the Rothschild collection, a gold salt-cellar in Vienna, a shield
elaborately wrought in Windsor Castle and even beautifully chased
armor, such as he made for Charles IX of Sweden, which may be seen at
Stockholm.
{94}
Of course, for any proper estimation of the Italian sculpture of this
period, the work of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo must bulk very
large. They have been treated in separate chapters, and there is room
here only to say that, while unfortunately we have almost none of
Leonardo's sculpture, we have from his own great artistically critical
generation traditions of magnificent accomplishment. As for
Michelangelo, his own generation admired him only too much, and the
almost inevitable imitation of his genius brought on decadence in
plastic art much sooner than it would otherwise have come. His faults
were imitated without any of the genius in power of expression that
condones them in the great originals. If Michelangelo's sculpture had
been the only contribution of this period to plastic art, that would
have been sufficient to place it high among the periods of greatest
productivity in this department of art. As it is, there were men who
preceded Michelangelo whose genius is unquestioned and whose
achievements have been recognized by the world ever since.
The roll of sculptors of the century worthily closes with the name of
John of Bologna, who was born at Douai in Flanders, but passed all his
life in Italy, and it is hard to know whether to group him with the
Italian or extra-Italian sculptors. Most of his great work was done
after the end of our century, but as he was probably more than
twenty-five years of age when the century closed, and received all his
training and inspiration from the men of our time, he deserves a place
here. John, who owes his name of Bologna to the fact that one of his
greatest works, the bronze "Neptune," was prepared for the fountain of
Bologna, was often called by his contemporaries _Il Fiammingo_, in
reference to the place of his birth. Probably no sculptor of his time
has been more popular all down the centuries than he, and there are
very few with any claim to education and culture who do not know his
wonderful figure of "Mercury," with winged feet borne aloft upon the
breezes blowing out of the mouth of Aeolus, the god of the winds.
There has probably never been a more masterly expression of light,
easy, graceful movements in statuary than this. It is for his power to
express movement {95} within the limitations of plastic art that John
is famous. His "Rape of the Sabines" in the Bargello in Florence is
declared "to have come nearer to expressing swift-flashing motion and
airy lightness than has ever been accomplished before or since." He
lacked the faults of exaggeration of the later Renaissance and had
many of its best qualities.
[Illustration: BENEDETTO ROVEZZANO, CHIMNEY PIECE]
The sculptured work on and in the Certosa at Pavia belongs mainly to
Columbus' period. It remains one of the great architectural and
sculptural monuments of the world. It has its defects, which are
mainly due to over-luxuriousness of decoration and failure to make the
decoration and the structure itself harmonize, but it remains a
beautiful example of the art of the time. It has continued to be ever
since a place of pilgrimage for art lovers, and it will doubtless
continue to be so for as long as this present phase of our
civilization lasts. It contains some most effective work, and while
not all of its sculpture is conceived in the true spirit of what
belongs to plastic art, there is much of it that has never been
surpassed except by supremely great sculptors, the men who are looked
upon as the world's geniuses in this department. When the Certosa is
compared with some of the churches which in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries were thought to be the highest expressions of
artistic excellence, the taste and the ability of the sculptors and
architects of the Renaissance become manifest.
Perhaps nothing brings out in greater relief the accomplishment of the
sculptors of this period than the deep decadence of the art in the
succeeding century. The only name that stands out with any prominence
during the seventeenth century is that of Bernini, a man of undoubted
talent, who, in a better period of art, might have been a sculptor of
the first rank. Much of his monumental work, however, is thoroughly
inartistic and has been declared "a series of perfect models of what
is worst in plastic art." It is still more illuminating to learn that
this work was looked upon in his time with the loftiest admiration. No
sculptor in any period had quite so much fulsome praise. The
eighteenth century sank, if possible, still lower in all that
pertained to true sculpture, and sculptors often of great technical
skill occupied themselves in making such {96} trivialities as statues
covered with filmy veils, through which forms and features could be
seen, and other tricks of art. It was not until Canova came at the end
of the eighteenth century that there was any gleam of hope for
sculpture, and even this was eclipsed to some extent by the classic
formalism which came in with it.
{97}
CHAPTER VII
SCULPTURE AND MINOR ARTS AND CRAFTS OUTSIDE OF ITALY
While Italy excelled in sculpture at this time, as indeed in every
department of art, the other countries of Europe practically all
enjoyed a magnificent period of development in plastic art, not a
little of it thoroughly national in character and some of the most
precious of it quite apart from Italian influence. Besides, there was
a marvellous accomplishment in the subsidiary arts and artistic crafts
well deserving of mention which confirms the place of this period
among the greatest of productive eras. A very noteworthy development
of sculpture took place in the Netherlands, where in the midst of the
rising democracies and the commercial prosperity there was a great
outburst of artistic genius. Wealthy patrons had the good taste to
recognize artistic genius and encourage it. There has never been a
period or country when tradesmen proved more discriminatingly
beneficent. It would be indeed surprising if the country that produced
the Van Eycks and the first great evolution of oil painting with the
work of Van der Weyden, Memling, Quentin Matsys, Gerard David and so
many others on canvas, should not have given us sculpture worthy of
this fine artistic development.
We do not, as a rule, know the names of the individual sculptors in
the Netherlands, because apparently they looked upon themselves as
artist artisans, whose duty it was to do their work faithfully and
thoroughly, looking for no reward of fame and no special recognition
beyond their own consciousness of having done good work. Their
sculptures are to be seen in many places, in the cathedrals, the town
halls and the other beautiful buildings erected at this time. Louvain,
Brussels and many of the other towns of what is now Belgium {98}
particularly must have had many artistic workers in stone who well
deserved the name of sculptors. They executed not only beautifully
decorative work, but also full-length statues, busts, medallions in
high and low relief, and plastic ornaments of all kinds. The high
quality of their accomplishment can scarcely be disputed, and yet the
lack of their names has often left the impression that there were no
great sculptors at this time; the fine sculpture that has come down to
us is, however, an emphatic contradiction of any such notion.
Some of the work done in the humble medium of wood is particularly
interesting. The charmingly artistic wood-carving of the consecration
of St. Eloi in the Church of Notre Dame at Bruges is a striking
example. The choir seats of the Church at Louvain are quite as worthy
of high praise, and the wood-carvings in the choir at Harlem so often
admired come from this same period. Perhaps one of the best examples
of the wood-carving of the time is the pulpit of the Cathedral at
Leyden, which was made in this century.
The tombs of Mary of Burgundy and of Charles the Bold in the Church of
Notre Dame, Bruges, still further emphasize the sculptural capacity of
these generations, though, from the rarity of large masterpieces,
there were apparently but few opportunities to display it on a
monumental scale. These monuments, especially the older one, are
supremely great works of art. A comparison of them is very
illuminating for the history of sculpture in our period. Though
constructed scarcely half a century apart, they are executed under the
influence of the two typical but very different art impulses of this
century. The tomb of Mary, made by Peter Beckere of Brussels in 1502,
is mediaeval and Gothic in spirit. That of Charles, made by order of
Philip II just before 1560, is a distinctly Renaissance work. The
later is much more modern and obvious in the meaning of all its
symbolism, but one need not be an artist to see how much more
genuinely artistic is the earlier tomb. At first glance one seems
almost a replica of the other, except, of course, for the figure of
the deceased and the subjects of the decorations of the sarcophaguses,
but it takes but little study to discover what a descent there is in
the art quality of the Renaissance work. Nowhere can one see the {99}
value of the old and the new nor compare Gothic and Renaissance so
easily as here.
[Illustration: PULPIT, LEYDEN]
Sculpture developed very wonderfully in Germany during the first half
of Columbus' Century. The commercial prosperity of the time, the
development of industries and the increase of trade caused an inflow
of wealth into many of the cities of Southern Germany particularly,
and not a little of this wealth found its way through the generosity
of donors into the decoration of their churches. The people's faith
was deep and full. Reform had not yet come to disturb it. Germany
devoted itself especially to sculptured decoration in wood. An immense
number of carved altars, pulpits, choir screens, stalls, tabernacles
and other church fittings of very great elaborateness and usually fine
artistic quality were produced. One of the first of the great German
wood-carvers was Joerg Syrlin, who executed the famous choir stalls of
Ulm cathedral, so richly decorated and ornamented with statuettes and
canopies. His son of the same name did the great pulpit in the same
cathedral and was given the commission for the elaborate stalls in
Blaubeuren church. These were finished within a year of the discovery
of America. At Nuremberg wood-carving also reached a high degree of
excellence, and Veit Stoss of Nuremberg, though notorious for his
escapades, was looked upon as the most skilful of artists for church
woodwork. He was invited to Cracow to do the high altar, the
tabernacle and the stalls of the Frauenkirchen. His masterpiece is the
great wooden panel nearly six feet square, carved toward the end of
the fifteenth century, with an immense number of scenes from Bible
history, which is now among the treasures of the Nuremberg town hall.
Albrecht Duerer himself with Renaissance versatility took up sculpture
and did not despise even the humble medium of wood. He was a clever
wood-carver and executed a tabernacle with an exquisitely carved
relief of Christ on the Cross between His mother and St. John, which
still may be seen in the chapel of the monastery at Landau. The
British Museum possesses a number of miniature reliefs in boxwood
which were also made by Duerer, though he early abandoned wood-carving
for art work in materials that might be expected {100} to be more
enduring. The influence of the wood-carving of this period can be
noted in the work of the sculptors of the time, even after they
abandoned it for stone and bronze. {101} Adam Kraft's great Schreyer
monument in St. Sebald's Church at Nuremberg, for instance, shows very
clearly the influence of wood-carving. There is no doubt, however,
about his high place among the sculptors, even of this glorious
period, in the art.
[Illustration: DUeRER, ST. JOHN BAPTIST PREACHING
(BAS-RELIEF IN CARVED WOOD)]
The Vischer family for three generations executed a series of very
great monuments in bronze, especially during the second half of
Columbus' Century. The genius of the family was Peter Vischer of the
second generation, who was admitted as a master sculptor into the
sculptors' guild of Nuremberg in 1489. Perhaps the most interesting
thing about his work is his absolute mastery of the technique of his
art. Few men have ever succeeded in casting in bronze to such good
effect. After having finished the magnificent tomb of Archbishop
Ernest in Magdeburg Cathedral, in which some traces of Gothic
influence still linger, Vischer obtained the opportunity for his
masterpiece in the beautiful canopy for the shrine of St. Sebald at
Nuremberg, a veritable triumph of plastic art. Modern, critical
appreciation of it has very well corroborated contemporary admiration.
Its details are a never-ending source of interest and study. Some of
the statuettes of saints attached to the slender columns of the canopy
are among the most charming examples of their kind that we have. They
have grace and dignity, as well as great expressiveness. Near the base
there is a small, evidently portrait, figure of a rather stout,
bearded man wearing a large leathern apron and holding some of the
sculptor's tools with which he usually worked that is considered to be
a figure of Peter himself. It is a marvel of clever realism.
The story of the execution of this monumental masterpiece is of itself
a lesson in the art work of the time. Peter was assisted by his sons,
and they worked at it almost continuously for more than ten years,
between 1508 and 1519. It was often extremely difficult for them to
secure money enough for their work from the authorities who had agreed
to pay, though stingily enough, yet they devoted themselves to it as
whole-heartedly as if it was a munificently rewarded work. The smaller
figures are executed with marvellous attention to detail, and every
feature of the work, the graceful scroll {102} foliage so abundantly
used, the dragons and even the grotesques, all the details which crowd
every possible part of the canopy, were executed evidently without the
slightest regard for the time and labor which were required for them
and with the good workman's delight in his work.
It has sometimes been said that these Teutonic sculptors of Nuremberg
were mere workers in bronze who reproduced in that material the ideas
and drawings of others. As pointed out by Cecil Headlam in his little
book on "The Bronze Founders of Nuremberg," [Footnote 11] "The
evidence of our eyes, which enable us to trace the development of
their style, would be enough to refute that opinion even if we were
without the documentary evidence which shows that father and sons
alike were patient and painstaking draughtsmen as well as craftsmen
all their lives." There is no doubt at all that they adopted and
adapted many ideas from the great Italian sculptors of their own and
the preceding time. They were deeply influenced by Sansovino,
Donatello, Leonardo da Vinci, but they were not mere imitators and
they were not plagiarists in any sense of the word. To quote Mr.
Headlam again (page 131):
[Footnote 11: "The Bronze Founders of Nuremberg: Peter Vischer and
His Family," by Cecil Headlam, B. A., formerly Demi of Magdalen
College, Oxford. London: George Bell & Sons, 1906.]
"They could apply the lessons they had learnt from their careful
study of the Italian Masters, and apply them with successful
originality. It is in the energy which lives in the King Arthur, the
simple yet vigorous composition and execution of bas-reliefs, such
as the Healing of the Blind Man of St. Sebald's tomb, or the Tucher
Memorial, with their wholly admirable treatment of lines and planes;
it is in the tender and spiritual feeling infused into the greatest
of their bronze portraits that the unanswerable vindication lies of
an imitation proved not too slavish and of a study that has not
deadened but inspired."
Other cities in Southern Germany, as Augsburg and Innsbrueck, and at
least one city in Northern Germany, Luebeck, are in possession of
bronze sculptures which show how thoroughly alive was the spirit of
plastic art all over Germany at this time.
[Illustration: KING ARTHUR (INNSBRUCK)]
Innsbrueck possesses a series of bronze statues, all of them {103}
executed in the first half of the sixteenth century, which has always
attracted the attention of the world artists ever since. There are
twenty-eight colossal bronze figures around the tomb of the Emperor
Maximilian which stands in the centre of the nave of the Cathedral.
They are designed to represent the heroes of the olden time and one of
them, usually looked upon as the finest, is an ideal statue of King
Arthur of the Briton legends, famous for the nobility of the face and
pose. He is represented in the plate armor of the early fifteenth
century. The statue of Theodoric is also considered to be not only a
very fine example of the work of the period, but also one of the
world's great bronze statues. The difficulties encountered {104} in
the accomplishment of the casting of the bronze for these were so
great that the Emperor invited Peter Vischer from Nuremberg to
superintend at least this portion of the work and it is probable that
his influence was felt also on the modeling. The designs are usually
attributed to local artists at Innsbruck, however, of whose names we
are not sure. In nothing are these older periods so different from
ours as in the utter neglect of artists to make any effort to secure
their personal fame.
[Illustration: HENRY VIII ON FIELD OF CLOTH OF GOLD
(FROM THE BAS-RELIEFS OF THE HOTEL BOURG HERALDE, ROUEN)]
In France even before the time of the Renaissance, or at least before
the effect of Greek ideas was felt, there was a magnificent
development of sculpture, an inheritance from the older period of the
thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries which had left such
magnificent monuments as the tombs in St. Denis, Le Beau Dieu at
Amiens and the statues in the porch of the cathedral at Chartres. The
first of these French Gothic sculptors of Columbus' Century is
Colombe, trained in Flanders, who founded a school of sculpture at
Tours. He {105} executed the tomb of Margaret of Austria and her
husband Duke Philibert of Savoy in the Marble Church of Brou. Tours
became a great centre of art in the latter half of the fifteenth
century. Its name, the town of spires, indicates that there had always
been aspirations after effect in their ecclesiastical architecture and
this reached a culmination in statuary at this time. With Colombe his
nephews worked while Jean Juste and his son collaborated in the poetic
tomb built in honor of the son and daughter of Charles VIII in the
Cathedral of Tours. Here also they erected the famous tomb of Louis
XII and Anne of Bretagne, which has since been carried to St. Denis.
The Justes had a power of putting touching human qualities into marble
that has always given a special interest to their work. Jean Fouchet
probably made at this time the lovely tomb of Agnes Sorel at Loches
which has been so famous and has helped to make Loches a favorite
pilgrimage place ever since.
French sculpture touched by the Renaissance reached a further triumph
of artistic development in the first half of the sixteenth century.
Two names particularly stand out, those of Jean Goujon and Germain
Pilon. Though the first signs of that affectation and mannerism which
developed as the Renaissance progressed are to be already noted in
their styles, they combined great technical skill with refinement in
modelling. Undoubtedly the greatest of the French sculptors of the
time was Jean Goujon, whose most pleasing work is the marble group of
Diana reclining beside a stag, which exhibits a power beyond that of
any except the greatest Italian sculptors. He executed a series of
sculptures for the older part of the Louvre which beautifully
harmonizes with the architecture. His reliefs for the Fountain of the
Innocents are one of the best known of his works and have a charm all
their own.
The other great sculptor, Germain Pilon, trained under the influence
of the Renaissance, did his best work just after the close of
Columbus' Century. His group of the Three Graces bearing on their
heads an urn containing the heart of Henry II, executed for Catherine
de Medici, has been deservedly very much praised. Other men, Maitre
Ponce and Barthelemy Prieur, did work that has attracted much
attention about this same time. A fine portrait effigy of a recumbent
figure in full {106} armor of the duke of Montmorency, which has
always attracted the attention of those of critical artistic taste and
is one of the treasures of the Louvre, is the work of Prieur.
[Illustration: GOUJON, JEAN, JEWEL CABINET ]
The story of subsequent decadence is as striking in France as in other
countries. No sculpture of any significance appeared during the
seventeenth century, though some of the artists of the time exhibited
great technical skill. Indeed it was not until the coming of Hudon, at
the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century,
that there is any relief from the story of mediocrity or worse, and
{107} in his time the plastic arts had reached a very low ebb. Modern
French sculpture is the result of the movement begun by Hudon, but it
is separated from the Renaissance by nearly two centuries of
debasement.
A very interesting and valuable development of the arts and crafts
that came in the Netherlands at this time was in the execution of art
tapestries. This is the period when weaving of all kinds came to its
highest perfection all over the world. The fifteenth and sixteenth
century Oriental rugs command the highest prices and are among the
most beautiful examples of carpet weaving that we have. In the
Netherlands and in France tapestry reached its highest perfection and
the examples executed at this time are now the precious treasures of
governmental museums and similar public institutions almost without
exception and probably will not change hands again because they are
looked upon as too valuable for educational purposes and the uplifting
of popular taste for public authorities ever to part with them. In the
Netherlands particularly, tapestry-making reached a climax of
perfection. After Michelangelo had been asked to decorate the ceiling
of the Sistine Chapel, Raphael was requested to do a series of
cartoons for the tapestries to be hung around the walls of it, which
were to be executed in Flanders. After their completion they were the
admiration of Rome, and we have many expressions of praise for them
from the great men of the time whose critical ability in all matters
relating to art cannot be doubted.
Vasari has an enthusiastic tribute, which even discounting his
well-known tendency to praise overmuch under certain circumstances,
still serves to show how thoroughly satisfied this period of great art
was with these masterpieces. He said:
"One is astonished at the sight of this series. The execution is
marvellous. One can hardly imagine how it was possible, with simple
threads, to procure such delicacy in the hair and beards and to
express the suppleness of flesh. It is a work more Godlike than
human; the waters, the animals and the habitations are so perfectly
represented that they appear painted with the brush, not woven."
[Illustration: ARMOR (FIFTEENTH CENTURY MUSEUM OF ARTILLERY, PARIS)]
The tapestries were first shown the day after Christmas, {108} 1519,
in the Sistine Chapel for which they had been designed. Some of the
greatest of the Renaissance scholars and artists and literary men were
present on the occasion. It was the custom at that time to send as
Ambassadors to Rome from foreign countries, distinguished scholars and
amateurs. Many of these were present. All were enthusiastic in their
admiration. Rumor said that they were quite unable to express all that
they felt for these new works of art. Everyone present, one of the
guests said in a letter to his sovereign, was speechless at the sight
of these hangings and it is the unanimous opinion that nothing more
beautiful exists in the universe. Another of those present wrote:
{109}
"After the Christmas celebrations were over, the Pope exposed in his
chapel seven tapestries (the eighth not being finished) executed in
the West (in Flanders). They were considered by every one the most
beautiful specimens of the weaver's art ever executed. And this in
spite of the celebrity attained by other tapestries--those in the
antechamber of Pope Julius II, those made for the Marchese of Mantua
after the cartoons of Mantegna, and those made for the King of
Naples. They were designed by Raphael of Urbino, an excellent
painter, who received from the Pope 100 ducats for each cartoon.
They contain much gold, silver and silk, and the weaving cost 1,500
ducats apiece--a total of 16,000 ducats ($160,000) for the set--as
the Pope himself says, though rumor would put the cost at 20,000
golden ducats."
Even this account gives evidence that it was not because of their
rarity, but on account of their unique quality that the Sistine
tapestries were so much admired. As a matter of fact, most of the
ruling court families of Italy ordered tapestries for themselves that
have since become famous and most of these were made in France and in
the Netherlands.
There is absolutely no doubt left now that this is the period when the
best tapestries ever made were woven. George Leland Hunter in his
"Tapestries, Their Origin, History and Renaissance" [Footnote 12] says
that the Golden Age of tapestries was the Gothic Renaissance
Transition--the last half of the fifteenth century and the first half
of the sixteenth century--the hundred years during which Renaissance
tapestries began and Gothic tapestries ceased to be woven, while many
of the greatest tapestries were of mixed style like the story of the
Virgin at Rheims. There are sets woven at various times during this
period which are among the greatest tapestry treasures of the world.
The largest of all these sets is the story of St. Remi in the church
of the same name at Rheims--sixteen feet high with a combined width of
165 feet. When exhibited at the Paris Exhibition in 1900, one of them,
wrong side out in order to display the richness and solidity of the
ancient unfaded colors, attracted the attention of amateurs from all
over the world. The story of St. Etienne in nine pieces at the Cluny
Museum {110} at Paris was presented to the Cathedral of Auxerre in
1502.
[Footnote 12: John Lane Co., New York, 1912. pp. 33.]
As a matter of fact there was scarcely a cathedral or monastery in
France at this time that did not come into the possession of beautiful
tapestries that are now very precious treasures. During recent years
the value of such tapestries have increased very much and our
millionaires have been willing to spend almost fabulous sums in order
to get possession of them. We have had the opportunity here in America
through the munificence of the late Mr. Pierpont Morgan to see some of
them in the Metropolitan Museum and have learned to realize that the
praise of them is well deserved. Mr. Hunter says that "the most famous
tapestries in the world are the Renaissance tapestries, though the
only distinction in most cases between the Gothic tapestries of the
end of the fifteenth and the Renaissance tapestries at the beginning
of the sixteenth, is that in one, whatever architecture or
ornamentation or decoration is used has Gothic motives, while the
models for these same details in the later tapestries is drawn from
the Renaissance." The Brussels tapestries of the early sixteenth
century are particularly beautiful and are the despair of the modern
tapestry makers. Other Flemish cities, however, Arras, Tournai,
Bruges, Lille, Antwerp became famous for their tapestries and Delft,
in Holland, was a worthy rival. The art seems to require too much
patience for our modern artisans to compete with their brethren of the
old time, but doubtless with the rise and appreciation of artistic
handicraftsmanship and the demand for charming decoration of homes and
public buildings regardless of cost, we may look confidently for a
development even in this line.
The other phases of the arts and crafts also developed very
wonderfully outside of Italy as well as in the peninsula. Beautiful
vessels for altar use, chalices, candlesticks, crucifixes and the like
were made, and indeed this is the supreme period of their manufacture.
Some of the chalices of this time were made by distinguished sculptors
who felt that they could not devote themselves to more suitable art
work than this for Church purposes. Under the inspiration of deep
religious feeling some even of the smaller pieces are among the
world's {111} great works of art. Benvenuto Cellino made morses,
chalices and crucifixes that are famous. Many of these were executed
for patrons outside of Italy. His well-known crucifix in the Escurial
near Madrid, made for Philip II, is a typical example. Processional
crosses lent themselves to decorative effect very well, and some of
them from this time are indeed very beautiful works of art. The same
application of artistic craftsmanship was to be noted with regard to
nearly everything meant for the service of the Church or for use in
municipal building for the decoration of municipal property. The
well-known iron well railing executed, it is said, by Quentin Matsys
(or Massys), when the artist was but a blacksmith and had not yet
taken up painting, is a typical sample of the combination of the
beautiful and useful which characterizes so much of the work of this
time and carries away every point of admiration.
[Illustration: SCENT BOX (CHASED GOLD, FRENCH, FIFTEENTH CENTURY)]
There was scarcely any form of decorative work that did not receive
high artistic development at this time nearly everywhere throughout
Europe. In recent years enamels have attracted much attention, and the
recent presentation of the Barwell collection to the British Museum
brought the Limoges work into prominence again. The London
_Illustrated News_ reproduced a series of Limoges enamels in the
Barwell collection that are marvellous in color and artistic
excellence. {112} The Courtois, the younger of whom, Jean, died in
1586, are probably the greatest artistic craftsmen in this mode.
Pierre Courtois (or Courteys) made just about the end of our century
the largest enamels which ever came out of Limoges with life-size
figures of the Virtues. Pierre Reymond (Raymond or Rexmont), who was
the Mayor of Limoges in 1567, did some work that attracted attention
as early as 1532. The stream of artistic influence at this time can be
studied very well in his work, for he was influenced by the Germans in
his early maturity, later came under the influence of the Italian
school, though he had been a pupil of Nardon Penicaud, who himself
came of a famous French family of fifteenth and sixteenth century
artists, whose work always possesses distinction. Some of the plaques
and salvers of this time in enamel are among the most precious
treasures of national collections throughout the world.
[Illustration: SEATS (fifteenth CENTURY MINIATURES)]
Some of the locks and keys and latches and hinges for doors made
during this period are among the most beautiful examples of iron work
in the world. The Cluny Museum in Paris possesses a number of these as
well as other iron work of Columbus' Century which show that the men
of this time had the true artistic spirit in their work. The armorers
of the period made probably the most beautiful armor that has ever
been made, and the finest pieces in collections, especially {113} in
national armories, are nearly all from this time. Scent boxes and
jewel boxes of various kinds in the precious or semi-precious metals
were always executed with fine artistic taste, or at least some of the
best examples of these in the world come from this time. Clocks were
made with a perfection of mechanism and at the same time an ornateness
that give them a place in the art world instead of merely in the
industrial domain. The furniture of the time is noted for its artistic
quality, and some of the smaller pieces made by well-known sculptors
or under their direction were works of art that now are thought of as
world treasures for all time.
[Illustration: CLOCK (FIFTEENTH CENTURY, PARIS)]
{114}
CHAPTER VIII
THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE CENTURY
Just as the introduction of Greek ideas gave a new impetus to
literature and art and sculpture and painting, so it did also, and
perhaps to an even greater degree, to architecture. The effect of
classic thought had begun to be felt before 1450. It was noted first
in ecclesiastical architecture and its influence can be traced
throughout Europe. Brunelleschi, who built the great dome of the
Cathedral in Florence, died in 1444, but not until he had shown the
world of his time how beautiful such a conception was and how it could
be accomplished. He had gone to Rome and studied the Pantheon, as well
as all the other great buildings which the Romans had left in that
city, and during his studies, becoming enamored of the subject, he
mastered every detail of their style and became familiar with every
form of Roman art. He first completed the Church of San Lorenzo in
Florence and then was entrusted with a larger work, the completion of
the Santo Spirito, which Arnolfo and Giotto had left unfinished and
apparently, according to the practice of the Middle Ages, without even
a drawing to show how they intended to complete it. They would have
given it a Gothic roof. Brunelleschi conceived the dome and then, in
the course of his studies and designing, definitely initiated the
development of Renaissance architecture.
The first important influence in the architecture of our century is
Leon Battista Alberti, who was led to the study of architecture
because of his interest in classical literature and his desire to
restore a classical style in building as well as in letters. In order
to accomplish this, he wrote a text-book of architecture, _"De re
aedificatoria."_ Besides the theory of classic architecture, he also
devoted himself to its practical exemplification, and there are some
models of his work that are well {115} known. The charming little
classic Church of San Francesco at Rimini and the much more important
Church of San Andrea at Mantua were erected under his direction. The
latter Church is noted, according to Fergusson in his "History of
Modern Architecture," [Footnote 13] for "the beauty of its
proportions, the extreme elegance of every part and the
appropriateness of the modes in which classical details are used
without the least violence or straining." All the details of the
classical architecture as applied to Churches are to be found in this
in their simplest and most sincere form. They were to become so
familiar afterwards as to represent a standard of Church architecture.
[Footnote 13: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1899.]
[Illustration: ALBERTI, SAN FRANCESCO (RIMINI)]
[Illustration: MICHELANGELO, ST. PETER's (ROME)]
The great development of this new style came under {116} Bramante of
Urbino, who was born the year that Brunelleschi died. His most
remarkable monument in ecclesiastical architecture is the Church at
Lodi. Alberti's work had been mainly {117} the restoration of the
Basilican form. Bramante emphasized the domical or Byzantine type.
After these two the change from the mediaeval to the modern style of
architecture may be said to have been completed and under the most
favorable auspices. The dome of Santa Maria delle Grazie, which
Fergusson pronounces "both externally and internally one of the most
pleasing specimens of its class found anywhere," is another monument
to Bramante's genius. Bramante is most famous, however, for his bold
design and magnificent foundations for St Peter's at Rome. He did not
live to complete this, but had his original plan been carried out, the
finished building would have been in many ways more satisfactory than
it is and would have exhibited many less serious architectural faults.
An excellent type of the ornate architecture of the Renaissance period
is the facade of the famous Certosa near Pavia. The designs for it
were prepared by Borgognone, a distinguished Milanese artist of that
time, one of whose pictures will be found reproduced in the chapter on
Secondary Italian Painters. He was much more essentially a painter
than an architect, and this the Certosa demonstrates. Many an
architect, with no ambition outside of his own department, would be
eminently well pleased, however, to have succeeded in producing so
beautiful and harmonious a design as may be seen in the facade of the
great Church of the Italian Carthusians.
The architectural monument of the century is St. Peter's at Rome,
designed originally by Bramante, whose design was developed and
harmonized very beautifully by Sangallo, but only after Raphael had
carried on Bramante's work for some six years and Baldassare Peruzzi
had succeeded him for an equal term, though without accomplishing
much. The defects so often noted come from this succession of
architects. Sangallo's design has been preserved for us and shows what
a magnificent conception he had. Michelangelo's dome might well have
taken its place in this design without any of the overpowering effect
that it has on the structure as completed. In spite of all the
criticism that may be made of St. Peter's, because, as the editor of
the recent edition of Fergusson's "History of Architecture" (Dodd,
Mead & Co., 1899) says, "the {118} big pulls away from the beautiful
and there must be a compromise," it is one of the most wonderful of
churches and one of the most marvellous structures that ever came from
the hand of man. Fergusson himself is severe in criticism, and yet he
says, "in spite of all its faults of detail, the interior of St.
Peter's approaches more nearly to the sublime in architectural effect
than any other which the hand of man has executed."
In England Renaissance architecture, that is the influence of the
classical, had very little, indeed almost no effect during Columbus'
Century. The genius, as well as the taste of the builders and
architects of the time, however, is well illustrated by the
development of Gothic architecture which took place in this period.
The Italians of the Renaissance decided that the interior of buildings
should be decorated by paintings. The English builders were yet in the
period in which they considered that the interior decoration, just as
the exterior decoration, should flow naturally from the construction
of the building. These two styles are very well illustrated in two
famous structures which were built within the same generation, though
separated by half the width of the European continent, and which are
triumphs of the respective styles of architecture. These are the
Sistine Chapel at Rome and King's College Chapel of Cambridge, the
plans of which, because of the inevitable contrast they suggest and
the supreme effectiveness of both of them, deserve study. Each has a
beauty of its own that advocates of either style cannot help but
admire, and both give magnificent testimony to the power of the men of
this time to express themselves nobly and beautifully in structural
work under the influence of religious ideas.
In Spain the architecture of the time is noteworthy, though it is
mainly of ecclesiastical character. All of the buildings erected by
Ferdinand and Isabella are in the Gothic style, and the famous Church
of St. John of the Kings at Toledo is as Gothic as the chapel of Henry
VII at Westminster. The Cathedral at Salamanca commenced in 1513 and
that of Segovia in 1525 are both thoroughly Gothic. These buildings
are so well known that the accomplishment of this period in
architecture need scarcely be emphasized. The first distinctively
Renaissance work in Spain is the Cathedral at {119} Granada, which,
though Gothic in certain ways, contains Renaissance suggestions and
modifications of form that have been adopted for many modern Churches.
[Illustration: ALBERTI, RUCELLAI PALACE (FLORENCE)]
The secular architecture of this period made as great progress as the
ecclesiastical architecture, and it is of even greater interest
because nearly all the ideas in common use among architects for
monumental public buildings or ambitious private structures in our
time are adopted and adapted from the architecture of Columbus'
Century. As in ecclesiastical {120} architecture, the Renaissance
begins in Florence. The erection of two of the magnificent palaces of
the city, still well known and admired, the Riccardi, formerly called
the Medicean, and the Pitti, were the initial steps. The Riccardi was
designed by Michelozzi and has a splendid facade 500 feet in length
and 90 feet in height. The Pitti is 490 feet in length, three stories
high in the centre, each story 40 feet in height, with immense windows
24 feet apart from centre to centre. They show very well what the
architects of this time could accomplish on this grand scale. Both
were completed just about the beginning of Columbus' Century. After
this, the Florentine buildings became more ornate, and yet with the
ornament properly adapted to the structure and producing an effect of
beauty that has deservedly won modern admiration and study. Probably
the two most famous buildings of the first half of Columbus' Century
are the Rucellai and the Guadagni palaces of Florence, the facades of
which have been much admired. The Rucellai Palace was designed by
Alberti, the Guadagni by Bramante. As their ideas dominated
ecclesiastical architecture, so now they were to dominate secular
architecture.
After Florence comes Venice, and here the wealth of the city, its
Oriental affiliations and the light and air of its surroundings gave
rise to a series of marvellously beautiful ornate Renaissance
buildings, famous throughout the world and especially known to
English-speaking people through Ruskin's "Stones of Venice." The most
famous of these is the Palazzo Vendramini, which may be permitted to
speak for itself. One of the most beautiful buildings in Venice is the
Library of St. Mark, situated exactly opposite the Doge's Palace and
built by Sansovino. Scarcely less beautiful is San Micheli's
masterpiece, the Palace of the Grimani, which is now the post-office.
These buildings are familiar to all. To know them is to admire them,
and the architects of every progressive structural period since have
devoted much study to them.
[Illustration: COURT DOGE'S PALACE (VENICE)]
A very interesting development of Renaissance architecture took place
in the little city of Vicenza, the birthplace of Palladio and the
scene of some of his best work. Palladio was not so perfect in his
achievements, as some of his admirers have suggested, but he applied
most of the Renaissance ideas to {121} architecture very successfully,
and his influence upon the after-time, as some of the illustrations
which we have selected from his work will show, has been felt at all
times and nearly everywhere. The Thiene Palace, which has been very
much praised {122} and is generally quoted as one of his most
successful designs, has been criticized rather severely by Fergusson,
and yet its effectiveness cannot be gainsaid.
The Chiericate Palace, another one of Palladio's designs reckoned
among his best, has the objection that it is open and weak at the
angles and solid in the centre and the centre is full above and weak
below, and yet, after mentioning these faults, Fergusson says that
there is "an exquisite proportion of parts which redeems this facade
and an undefinable elegance of detail which disarms the critic of
Palladio's work so that in spite of the worst possible arrangements
they still leave a pleasing impression on the mind of the spectator."
This is, perhaps, damning by faint praise, but it is praise indeed
from Fergusson. Many others have been most enthusiastic about this and
other of Palladio's works, and one has only to look around at our
modern ambitious structures to realize how much of influence Palladio
still has.
In Genoa there are some very beautiful buildings of this time, though
as their material, despite the name "the city of palaces," was mainly
rubble masonry covered with stucco, the windows without dressings, the
intention being to paint the architectural mouldings on the stucco and
also to paint frescoes between them, the unsatisfactoriness of much of
the architecture for modern study can be realized. In spite of these
limitations, Galeazzo Alessi (1500 to 1572) succeeded in making some
very beautiful buildings. Probably the most admired example is the
building now known as the Municipalata in the Strada Nuova, formerly
known as the Tursi-Doria Palace.
Vignola (1507 to 1573) occupies the place in Rome that Palladio holds
in Vicenza towards the end of Columbus' Century. A charming example of
his construction is the Villa of Pope Julius near Rome, the facade of
which is certainly his and which, without being ambitious, represents
his power to express simplicity and dignity even in a summer house.
His great work is the Palace of Caprarola, built some thirty miles
outside of Rome for the Cardinal Alessandro Farnese. The building is
all the more interesting because it has furnished ideas for some of
the larger public buildings of our time and contains more than a
suggestion for some recent architectural plans of somewhat startling
character for New York City.
{123}
[Illustration: PALLADIO, BARBARANO PALACE (VICENZA)]
{124}
The plan of the Palace of Caprarola is a pentagon enclosing a circular
court, each of the five sides measures 130 feet and the court is 65
feet in diameter, while the three stories are each about 30 feet in
height. It is usually considered one of the finest palaces in Italy.
In spite of the difficulty of the task and the singularly unfavorable
nature of pentagonal form for architectural effect externally and
commodious arrangements internally, the architect succeeded admirably.
As the picture of it shows very well, the approach was managed
beautifully and the effect of castellation very well secured.
The story of architecture, secular as well as religious, outside of
Italy is quite as interesting as that in Italy itself at this time.
Everywhere throughout Europe beautiful buildings were erected in
charming taste and with fine effectiveness. This is particularly true
as regards the municipal buildings of various kinds, the town halls,
the hospitals, the asylums for foundling children, and all the other
structures due to civic munificence at this time. Just as in regard to
painting and sculpture, the Netherlands was the seat of some extremely
beautiful artistic work of great originality and perfection of detail
during this period. There is scarcely an important town of Belgium,
and even a number of those that have become quite unimportant in our
time, which does not present some architectural monument of cardinal
importance in the history of architecture. While Italy is much better
known, Belgium deserves, and in recent years has very properly
received, devoted attention from students and amateurs in all the
arts, and not least has its architecture come into its due meed of
praise and appreciation.
[Illustration: HOTEL DE VILLE, LOUVAIN]
One of the most beautiful architectural monuments of the later
fifteenth century is the town hall of Louvain. Indeed, it is one of
the most beautiful architectural monuments of its kind in the world.
Schayes, in his "History of Architecture," says, "Not only is the
Hotel de Ville of Louvain the most remarkable municipal edifice in
Belgium, but one may seek in vain its equal in Europe." Its architect,
whose name was unknown until well on in the nineteenth century, was
only a master mason of this capital of Brabant when he was entrusted
{125} with the task of making for the burghers of one of the most
important towns of the time a town hall such as they would consider
worthy of them, but above all surpassing those erected by any of the
neighboring towns. He succeeded eminently in fulfilling the
commission, and fortunately the town hall remains almost in its
original condition as a monument to the wonderful artistic workmanship
of the time.
[Illustration: ALCALA, PARANIMFO (STATE APARTMENT OF UNIVERSITY)]
George Wharton James, in his book on "Some Old Flemish Towns," says,
"The exquisite Hotel de Ville reminds one of the caskets or
reliquaries which Kings and Queens used to give to be placed upon the
high altars of Cathedrals. There is the same simplicity of design, the
same beauty of line, the {126} rectangle with gables, emphasized by a
graceful tower at each pinnacle, and another at each angle, the whole
finished with a crown spire tipped with a golden fleche." The
decorations are most delicate, reminding one of the lace work of the
country, but it seems almost incredible that this effect should have
been produced so marvellously in stone.
[Illustration: ALCALA, ARCHIEPISCOPAL PALACE COURT]
In spite of the multitude of decorations, the structure does not
strike one, as do so many of the buildings of the seventeenth century,
as over-decorated, but somehow all the charming sculptured ornament
seems as {127} suitably in place here as it is in the exquisite
patterns of the lace of the town.
The beautiful Hotel de Ville of Brussels is almost as interesting as
that at Louvain and represents the early part of the Columbus'
Century. At the opposite side of the Grande Place is what is now known
as the Maison du Roi, formerly known as the Broodhuis or House of
Bread, which is scarcely less interesting, though very much restored,
than the Hotel de Ville. The one is a monument of the Gothic of the
middle of the fifteenth century, the other shows the influence of the
Renaissance in the early sixteenth century. The whole of the Grand
Place gives an excellent idea of the devotion of these municipalities
to civic beauty and monumental construction and represents an
anticipation of ideas that are usually considered modern but that were
very thoroughly developed and applied in making the "City Beautiful"
in Columbus' Century. Were there space, much might be said here about
the magnificent town halls of Bruges, Ghent and other cities of the
Netherlands.
The architecture of Spain, practically always connected with the names
of ecclesiastics and usually built for ecclesiastical or educational
or charitable purposes, shows very well the profound intellectual
genius of the people for whom Columbus' discovery was made and who
were beginning to reap the material benefits of his extension of the
Spanish realms in the Western continent. One of the most important of
the buildings of the time is that of the University of Alcala, under
the direction of the celebrated Cardinal Ximenes, or Cisneros. The
rebuilding commenced about 1510 and continued nearly to the end of
Columbus' Century. It is an extremely beautiful building. The
Archiepiscopal Palace is quite equal to it, and its court has been
very highly praised. Fergusson has spoken highly of the bracket
capitals in the upper story of this court, of which we give a sketch,
and he thinks this invention of the Spanish architect a distinctly new
and valuable idea in architecture which unfortunately has not been
commonly adopted.
Some of the internal arrangements have been very much admired, and the
Paranimfo, a state apartment in the University, deserves attention not
only for its intrinsic beauty, but {128} from its being so essentially
Spanish in style. The roof is of richly-carved woodwork in panels in a
style borrowed from the Moors. Fergusson says that there is another
and more beautiful specimen of this sort of work in the chapel of the
University above the Cenotaph of the great Cardinal.
[Illustration: CLOISTER, (LUPIANA, SPAIN)]
Elsewhere in Spain some of these beautiful courts and interiors were
ornamented very highly as became a Southern {129} people, and yet with
an effectiveness and taste that have caused them to be very much
admired in after-times. In the Monastery of Lupiana there is a
cloistered court similar in design to that at Alcala, but even
grander, four stories in height, each gallery being lighter than the
one below it and so arranged as to give the appearance of sufficient
strength, combined with the lightness and elegance peculiarly
appropriate to domestic architecture, especially when employed
internally as it is here. Fergusson, from whom the opinion just
expressed is quoted, thinks that the Spanish architects were far more
happy than their Italian brethren in this regard and mainly because
they borrowed ideas from their own Spanish art rather than kept too
insistently to classic ideas.
Two royal buildings in Spain, the Palace of Charles V at Granada and
the Alcazar of Toledo, deserve to be mentioned. The Alcazar was begun
before the end of Columbus' Century, but not finished until later. The
sketch of it here presented gives an excellent idea of how simple and
yet properly ornate for monumental purposes the Spanish architects
were making their buildings at this time. The truly Spanish features
of solidity below, with the increasing richness and openness above, is
very effective and is all the more interesting because historians of
architecture declare that this effect was little understood outside of
the Spanish peninsula.
The upper portion of the famous tower of the Giralda at Seville, which
has always attracted so much attention for its beauty, was being built
just at the close of the century. We in modern America have given it
the tribute of sincerest flattery by imitating it in the tower of
Madison Square Garden. It is interesting to realize that the Spaniards
put a figure of Faith at the summit of the beautiful tower, pointing
strikingly heavenward. Is it significant that we in our time have
found nothing better to put there than the outworn symbol of a statue
to Diana?
French secular architecture at this time made some fine achievements
which are very well known and have been very much admired. The Louvre
in Paris is a succession of monuments to the architectural spirit of
the French for centuries. I think that there is very general agreement
that the portion {130} of this building erected in Columbus' Century
is not only the most interesting, but the most beautiful. The Pavilion
de I'Horloge is quite charming in its effectiveness. The ornamental
portions are said to have been sculptured from designs furnished by
Jean Goujon. This is enough of itself to make us sure that they would
be beautiful, but they were besides very artistically designed to
heighten the effect of the architecture.
[Illustration: ALCAZAR (TOLEDO, EXTERNAL FACADE)]
The best-known contributions to architecture by the French in this
time are their famous chateaux. The typical example of these is the
Chateau of Chambord, commenced by Francis I immediately after his
return from his Spanish captivity. While the design is classical in
detail, it is eminently French in character, and it has been a
favorite study of architects ever since. Its repute shows how well
architects at this time {131} accomplished their purpose of making an
impressively beautiful building. At this same time the Chateau of
Madrid, situated in the Bois de Boulogne at Paris and which was
unfortunately destroyed during the Revolution, was built, and the
sketches that are left to us show us its beauty and effectiveness
secured through comparative simplicity. All the famous chateaux of
France were either built or received their most famous additions under
the influence of the new spirit that came into architecture under the
influence of Francis I. Those of Bury and Blois and Amboise and
Chenonceaux were products of this period. The staircase and the wing
in the centre of which it stands at Blois are among the most admired,
or at least the most frequently drawn, of the works of this age.
All the other departments of architecture, besides the ecclesiastical
and municipal, were affected by the enterprising spirit which entered
into architecture at this time. Leonardo da Vinci offered to build
fortifications under any and all circumstances, the more difficult the
better, and succeeded in doing some excellent work. According to
tradition he laid firm foundations, even under water, for certain
French fortifications, and these still remain. In bridge building
particularly this period did some excellent work. In the chapter on
Social Work and Workers will be found an illustration of the bridge
built across the Avon at Stratford by Sir Hugh Clopton about the time
of the discovery of America, which shows that they could build
beautifully as well as enduringly at this time. There are many private
houses in the towns of Europe erected at this time, some of them even
by families without any pretension to wealth or nobility, which
illustrate very well how sincere and thorough was their domestic
architecture, how beautiful because of its honest straightforwardness
and how eminently enduring. Fra Giocondo, who edited the Aldine
edition of Vitruvius in 1511 and who edited Caesar in 1513, introduced
illustrations into these works, and particularly a plan of Caesar's
bridge across the Rhine. He used his classical knowledge to good
purpose, however, for in the service of the king of France he probably
built two of the noble bridges that still span the Seine. These were
finished early in the {132} sixteenth century. It would not be
difficult to note other examples of this same kind in many parts of
Europe at this time.
Fergusson summed up the place of this century in architecture very
well in his advice to Italy as to what must be done in order to
restore to that country the precedence that she won in architecture in
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. He said (p. 169): "Italy has
only to go back to the inspirations which characterize the end of the
fifteenth and the dawn of the sixteenth century, to base upon them a
style which will be as beautiful as it would be appropriate to her
wants and her climate. If she will only attempt to revive the
traditions of the great age which is hallowed by the memories of
Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael, of Bramante, Sangallo, and even of
Michelangelo, she cannot go wrong. These men erred occasionally from
inexperience, and because the system under which the art was conducted
in their days was such as to render success impossible; but their
aspirations were right, and there was an impress of nobleness on their
works _which has not since been surpassed._
"Since their time the history of Italian art may be summed up in a few
words. During the fifteenth century it was original, appropriate and
grand; during the sixteenth it became correct and elegant, though too
often also tinctured with pedantry; and in the seventeenth it broke
out into caprice and affectation, till it became as bizarre as it was
tasteless. During the eighteenth it sank down to a uniform level of
timid mediocrity, as devoid of life as it is of art."
It is as true for all the countries of Europe as for Italy that what
is needed for the redemption of architecture from the unfortunate
sordid influences which have crept over it is a return to the ideas of
Columbus' Century. Fortunately, since Fergusson wrote his paragraph of
advice for Italy, a great change has come over the attitude of men
generally toward architecture, and beautiful buildings are being
erected nearly everywhere, most of them with Renaissance ideas
prominent in them, but above all with the lessons drawn from this
fruitful period of beautiful construction guiding the minds and hands
of architects and builders. All around us handsome Renaissance
buildings are rising. Inasmuch as they are mere {133} imitations, they
are unfortunate evidence of our lack of originality. If, somehow,
using the same high standards of taste and the inspiration of the
classic authors as did the men of Columbus' Century, we can succeed in
evolving an architecture suited to our conditions and our environment
and appropriate for the uses of our day, then we shall accomplish the
solution of the problem which they solved so well. What they did above
all was to accomplish in building Horace's dictum that "he who mingles
the useful and the beautiful takes every point." The merely useful is
hideous. The merely beautiful is monstrous. Success lies in that
combination of use and beauty, of which Columbus' contemporaries so
ingeniously found the key.
{134}
CHAPTER IX
MUSIC
Everyone concedes the supreme accomplishment of Italy in the arts of
painting, sculpture, architecture, and even in the lesser arts and
crafts during the Renaissance period, which we have called Columbus'
Century. It is not always realized, however, that her place in music
is almost equally important and that her accomplishment in this art
came also during this same period. While musical development into
modern forms came as a rule after the close of our century, the great
foundations of modern music were laid at this time. These are not so
deep beneath the surface of developed music, however, as to be hidden
from us entirely at the present time. On the contrary, there are many
composers and musical measures of this period which still have an
interest quite apart from their antiquity and which music-lovers know
very well in spite of the time that has elapsed since their
composition.
We know nothing of ancient music, and indeed are scarcely able to
conceive just how Grecian music was composed or written and expressed.
It might be thought, then, that the Renaissance, representing the
influence upon the modern world of the rebirth of Greek ideas, would
be lacking in any important development of music. In every other
department, even in that of science, indeed it might well be said,
especially in that of science, the influence of contact with ancient
Greek ideas can be readily seen. They formed the stimulus for study
and often supplied the fundamental information on which modern, that
is Renaissance, developments were built up. Without this aid from the
ancients, then, it might reasonably be expected that music would be
neglected or would certainly be in abeyance, but this is not the case.
There is a great period of musical history, not perhaps so significant
as the progress in other departments of aesthetics, but containing
within itself {135} a magnificent achievement and the germ of all our
modern music.
Perhaps there is nothing that demonstrates so well the fact that the
Renaissance was not, as it is so often considered, a rebirth out of
nothingness after some 1500 years of darkness and lack of
accomplishment than the history of music. Only that there had been a
great period of advance in Europe before the Renaissance, the stimulus
of Greek would have had very little effect. The old philosophers said
that things are received according to the capacity of the receiver,
and in the modern time a favorite maxim of teachers is that students
take away from a lecture what is of value to them just in proportion
to what they brought to it. It was the height of the culture of the
preceding period that enabled the generations of the Renaissance to
take such good advantage of the New Learning. In music, there being no
New Learning, they had to depend on their own efforts, and the
magnificent fruits of their musical progress show how the genius of
the time was capable of accomplishment for itself.
As a result of the lack of any stimulus from Greek sources for music,
the first development of it at this time is noted not in Italy, as is
true for other modes of aesthetic evolution because of contiguity to
Greece, but, on the contrary, in the distant West of Europe and
especially in the Netherlands. Henderson, in his "The Story of Music,"
declares that "all the countries at this time took Netherlandish
masters," and one finds the names of distinguished teachers of music,
who were from the Low Countries, in centres so far apart as Naples,
Venice, Munich and Madrid.
The first of these, who was an extremely important factor in the music
of the time, was Ockeghem, or Ockenheim, of Hainault, who, in the
latter half of the fifteenth century, came to be looked upon as
probably the greatest teacher of the time. He is surpassed in fame by
his pupil, Josse Despres, usually known by the name, familiarly used
among his friends, Josquin, who is also a native of Hainault.
Henderson declares that "in technical skill no master has ever
surpassed Ockeghem; and all that he knew he taught Josquin, who made
it the outlet for his real musical genius." Luther said of him, "They
sing {136} only Josquin in Italy; Josquin alone in France; only
Josquin in Germany; in Flanders, in Hungary, in Bohemia, in Spain, it
is always only Josquin." From this testimony, and the otherwise
well-known popularity of this composer's music, it is probable that
there has never been a great European musician who, in his own time,
has gained more universal acclaim among music-lovers than Josquin.
There is no doubt at all of the merit of his work. Arcadelt, who was
Palestrina's teacher at Rome and himself a distinguished musician of
this time, said of him: "Other composers make their music where their
notes take them, but Josquin takes his music where he wills."
Arcadelt's musical ability is recognized; an Ave Maria by him is still
often sung.
Other countries were not without an important development in music at
this time. England had been the leader in musical composition and
evolution before Flanders had her turn. In the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries England had developed part singing and also laid
the foundations of counterpoint. In the fifteenth century musical
composition and erudition came to be considered of so much importance
that academic honors were conferred on musicians. John Hamboys, the
author of some treatises on the art of music, is said to be the first
on whom the degree of Doctor of Music was ever conferred. In 1463,
according to the records, the University of Cambridge conferred the
degree of Doctor of Music on Thomas Seynt Just and the degree of
Bachelor of Music on Henry Habyngton. During the following century it
was required that candidates for the degree of Musical Doctor should
present an original musical composition. America has followed England
in the granting of academic degrees for music, though I believe no
other country has done so except Ireland.
In the latter half of Columbus' Century there was a vigorous native
school of music in Germany which devoted itself, however, almost
entirely to the composition of songs for the people. The best known of
the composers of this time is the famous Hans Sachs of Nuremberg, who,
in the first half of the sixteenth century, wrote so many ballads for
the people and set them to his own music. He was by trade a shoemaker,
and all the musical composers in this particular mode {137} seem to
have been craftsmen who took to musical composition and the writing of
ballads for their music as a recreation after their daily labor. They
organized themselves into guilds, which, in imitation of the old
knightly songsters of the days of chivalry, they called
Meistersingers. In its vigorous originality this movement produced at
the beginning some striking folk music with a wonderful influence on
the life of the people. After a time, however, the spirit of
exclusiveness asserted itself and seriously hurt their work. They
enacted rigid and pedantic laws, refused to admit to mastership in the
guild those who did not follow these laws, and the letter killed the
spirit, and true music disappeared, while men who prided themselves on
their musical ability and taste were trying to uplift it, but were
really regulating it out of existence. The decline in music is,
however, only commensurate with the decline in the other arts and due
to many of the same causes. The latter half of Columbus' Century saw
the rise of the great Roman school of music which, at the end of this
period, was to bring about a culmination of musical achievements that
places this among the greatest musical epochs of the world. As was
true everywhere in Italy, Rome owed its musical incentive and teaching
to a Fleming. The great master was Claude Goudimel, who is said to
have been born at Avignon, but who was educated in Flanders and is
known as a Fleming. Among his pupils at Rome, where he opened a
school, are the most famous musicians of the sixteenth century and
some of the most famous of all time. Among others, probably, were
Palestrina, the supreme master of modern church music, though the old
tradition of Goudimel's great influence over him is now denied; the
brothers Animuccia, one of whom was the penitent and intimate friend
of St. Philip Neri, the founder of the Oratory, after which the
Oratorio is named, and the brothers Nanini, who contributed so much to
Italian music before the end of the sixteenth century. Another of his
pupils was Orlando di Lasso, known as Lassus or Latres of Mons, who
was one of the greatest and most popular of the musicians of this
time. He was known in many countries and popular in all of them. To
him we owe the definite attempt to make words and music run along in
such harmony as would {138} emphasize and thoroughly co-ordinate the
meaning of both. An abuse had been growing for a considerable period
by which prolix florid passages of music were written for single
syllables. Even Josquin had indulged much in this vicious mode. After
Orlando di Lasso's reformation, the practice was to come back again in
the fiorituri of the opera composers, especially the Italians of the
early nineteenth century, and had to be combated by Wagner. There is
little in the revolution effected in music by the modern German
composer in this regard at least that was not anticipated by his great
predecessor, Orlando, full three centuries before. Orlando di Lasso
was known, moreover, for the sweetness, beauty, as well as the great
number and variety of his works. One of his songs, "Matona! Lovely
Maiden!" has been pronounced one of the most charming part songs in
existence.
Lassus (di Lasso) tried every form of music at this time, but devoted
himself chiefly to musical compositions for church purposes. We have
from him psalms, hymns, litanies, magnificats, motets, as well as more
lengthy musical settings for religious services. Bonavia Hunt, the
Warden of Trinity College, London, and lecturer on musical history, in
his "History of Music" declares that Lassus' settings of the Seven
Penitential Psalms for five voices are among his best works. They
contain elements that have made them a favorite study for students of
music even in our time. Lassus introduced such musical terms as
_Allegro_ and _Adagio_ into music and brought chromatic elements into
musical composition. He was very greatly appreciated in his own day
and was called _Princeps Musicae_, the prince of music. He received as
much honor from statesmen as Palestrina did from churchmen, and the
story of the honor paid to both of them by their own generation is the
best possible tribute to the musical taste of the time. Lassus was
made a Knight of the Order of the Golden Spur.
The greatest musician of this time, however, probably indeed the
greatest of all times, is Palestrina, who in 1551 was appointed the
musical director of the Julian Chapel in the Vatican with the definite
hope that he would reform the evils that had crept into music and were
making the art in its most recent {139} development so unsuitable for
religious purposes. The Council of Trent, whose sessions were being
held with interruptions at this time, had to legislate so as to secure
suitable music for the mass. Ornamental passages of all kinds, or at
least what were supposed to be such, had been introduced into church
music, until finally it was quite impossible to follow the words of
the service. As Cardinal Borromeo said, "These singers counted for
their principal glory that when one says _Sanctus_ another says
_Sabaoth_ and a third _gloria tua_ and the whole effect of the music
is little more than a confused whirling and snarling, more resembling
the performance of cats in January than the beautiful flowers of May."
He was one of the committee who insisted at various sessions of the
Council of Trent on musical reform, and while their work has sometimes
been falsely represented as derogatory of music itself, all that the
Council wished to accomplish was to secure intelligibility of the
words, and as a matter of fact their insistence on the simplification
of music led to a magnificent new development in the art.
It has sometimes been said that Palestrina's work represented a
revolution in the music of his time. This is not true, however, for
his great mass music was only an evolution in the hands of the great
master of the musical movement that had preceded his time. The story
of his having been asked to write music very different from that which
had immediately preceded, in order that church music might be
preserved and figured music be thus still used in ecclesiastical
services, has been discredited by recent historical research. At the
end of Columbus' Century a climax in musical expression had been
reached which Palestrina represents and which marked an epoch in the
history of music. The abuses that had crept in were quite apart from
the genuine evolution of music. Henderson, in his "How Music
Developed" (New York: Stokes, 1898, page 73), has told the story:
"The mass of Marcellus was not written to order, and there was
nothing new in its style. The mass is simply a model of all that was
best in Palestrina's day. It embodied all that was noblest in the
polyphonic style developed by the Netherlands school. Its melody is
pure, sweet and fluent, and its {140} expressive capacity perfectly
adapted to the devotional spirit of the text. Palestrina's
contemporaries, such as Lasso and some of his predecessors, wrote in
the same style. Lasso's 'Penitential Psalms' are much simpler in
style than this mass. Its apparent simplicity lies in the fact that
its profound mastery of technical resources conceals its superb art.
The polyphonic writing is matchless in its evenness; every part is
as good as every other part. The harmonies are beautiful, yet there
is apparently no direct attempt to produce them. They seem just to
happen. But above all other qualities stands the innate power of
expression in this music. It is, as Ambrose has hinted, as if the
composer had brought the angelic host to earth."
Mees, in his "Choirs and Choral Music," has outlined what
the place of Palestrina's music in church services is, and made it
very clear how helpful it is for devotion instead of suggesting
distractions, as modern music is so sure to do. Dickenson, in his
"Study of the History of Music," says that in "Comparing a mass by
Palestrina with one of Schubert or Gounod he (the hearer) will
perceive not only a difference of style and form, but also one of
purpose and ideal. The modern work strives to depict the moods
suggested by the words according to the general methods that prevail
in modern lyric and dramatic music; while the aim of the older music
is to render a universal sentiment of devotion that is impersonal and
general. Music here conforms to the idea of prayer. There is no
thought of definite portrayal; the music strives merely to deepen the
mystical impression of the ceremony as a whole."
Mees had said in his work, p. 61:
"Palestrina's conception of what the music of the Roman church
should be was in perfect accord with the principle held by the early
church: that music should form an integral part of the liturgy and
add to its impressiveness. ... No sensuous melodies, no dissonant
tension-creating harmonies, no abrupt rhythms distract the thoughts
and excite the sensibilities. Chains of consonant chords growing out
of the combination of smoothly-flowing, closely-interwoven parts,
the contours of which are all but lost in the maze of tones, lull
the mind into that state of submission to indefinite impressions
which makes it susceptible to the mystic influence of the ceremonial
and turns it away from worldly things."
[Illustration: MELOZZO DA FORLI. ANGEL WITH LUTE (ROME)]
{141}
Perhaps the best proof of the enduring value of Palestrina's work is
to be found in the fact that some of his compositions are still to be
heard in the Sistine Chapel, and that even in our own time [Footnote
14] a definite movement to restore his music to its proper high place
in the service of the Church has been initiated. Whenever, since his
death, music has been really on a high plane, Palestrina has been
thoroughly appreciated. Whenever musical taste has been debased and
men have gone seeking after novelty and bizarre effects and
over-decoration, Palestrina has been neglected. For music, he is what
Dante is to literature and art, the touchstone by which it is easiest
to estimate properly the value of a generation's critical faculty and
spirit of appreciation. Henderson, in his "How Music Developed,"
already quoted from, has summed up Palestrina's accomplishment in a
few words:
[Footnote 14: The decree of Pope Pius X, requiring the restoration
of the Gregorian Chant to the place of honor in the Liturgic
Services and making Palestrina's music the standard to which choir
music should properly conform, seemed to many music-lovers
distinctly reactionary and perhaps old-fogyish. As a matter of
fact, it was a well-judged restoration of such criteria in church
music as would preclude the possibility of modern unsuitable
developments of music finding their way further into church
services. It was open to the same objections on the part of those
who knew no better as the decree of Pope Leo XIII that St. Thomas
Aquinas' Philosophy should be the standard in Catholic schools of
Philosophy and Theology. The two decrees will be set beside each
other in history as examples of the ability of great Popes so to
direct church policy as to preserve the faithful from human
degeneracies of taste and thought. Palestrina's music is as firm a
standard of church music as Aquinas' thought is a safe criterion
in philosophy.]
"Before leaving the subject of Palestrina, let me endeavor to make
clear to the reader wherein his style is so fine. Composers before
him had begun to aim at the simplification of church music. They
sought to accomplish their purpose by breaking the shackles of
canonic law. The canon had demanded the most exact imitation in the
different voice parts. The new style allowed the greatest freedom.
The result was that free polyphony took the place of rigid canon.
{142} Consequently composers were able to devote more attention to
the development of fluent, beautiful and expressive melody. The
merit of Palestrina's work was that it carried this style to
perfection. His compositions became the models for succeeding
composers, and indeed they remain to this day unequalled as examples
of pure church music."
Palestrina's career furnishes another striking example of the
opportunities for genius to express itself provided by this period.
According to a contemporary manuscript authority, so that the story is
probably much more authentic than such stories usually are, young
Pierluigi of Palestrina, the ancient Praeneste, while peddling in the
streets of Rome the products of his father's farm, used to sing songs,
one of which was heard by the choirmaster of Santa Maria Maggiore. He
found that the boy had not only a beautiful voice, but a taste for
music, so he gave him the opportunity for a musical education.
Palestrina lived to be over eighty years of age, with manifold
opportunities afforded him for the display of his genius. The latter
half of his life was spent as one of the most honored men of his
generation. His most brilliant period began when he was nearly seventy
and when he was apparently thinking his career at an end. His complete
works in thirty-three volumes have just been published, the last
volume of the completed edition being presented to Pius X in 1908, who
was most interested in this great modern monument to the Catholic
genius of music. The great composer is worthy to stand beside St.
Teresa, St. Philip Neri and St. Ignatius Loyola as one of the
protagonists of the counter reformation. He did for music and the
Church what others did for education, mysticism and social reform.
One of the most interesting chapters in the history of music began
just about the end of Columbus' Century. St. Philip Neri, of whom we
have spoken in the chapter on Social Work and Workers of the period,
was himself devoted to music and recognized how much it might mean for
occupation of mind with higher things that would be a source at once
of pleasure and social relaxation. He appreciated also how much of
value music might lend to the proper expression of religious feeling,
and even how much it might add to genuine religious {143} sentiment.
The Miracle Plays of the latter half of the fifteenth century had
always been accompanied by certain songs and glees with words relating
to the sacred subjects often set to popular music. St. Philip
recognized that these performances might be raised to a higher plane
by introducing more music and using the best possible music for their
illustration. Accordingly, in the course of services held in his
oratory, he introduced historical scenes and sacred allegories with a
musical setting, calling as a rule on his musical friends in Rome, and
especially Animuccia, to supply him with compositions. Hence the term
oratorio, the Italian word for oratory, for this class of music. It
was not to reach its highest form of expression, the dramatic, until
the end of the sixteenth century, but it is an invention of Columbus'
period.
An extremely important invention of this time was the introduction of
the chord of the dominant seventh. The discovery is usually said to
have been due to Claudio Monteverde of the seventeenth century, but
the earliest extant musical works, in which examples of the phenomenal
chord of the dominant seventh with the full freedom of present-day
practice are found, are those of Jean Mouton of Holling in Lorraine,
who died about 1522. For nearly a century after this time this great
discovery, like so many others in every department of science,
struggled for a place. It was finally acknowledged. This discovery
brought music into close relation with science, and demonstrated its
foundation in the natural laws of acoustics. In his article on the
History of Music in "The Encyclopaedia Britannica," Sir George A.
MacFarren, Professor of Music at the University of Cambridge, declared
"that the discovery of the dominant seventh lays open the principle
for which pagan philosophers and Christians had been vainly groping
through centuries while a veil of mathematical calculation hung
between them and the truth." The curious feature of the history of its
introduction lies in the fact that it failed of appreciation from
orthodox musicians for a considerable period and actually met with
organized opposition.
Even this brief sketch will suffice to show how greatly music
developed during Columbus' Century. There is probably no corresponding
period in the world's history that can show as {144} much real advance
that is lasting progress. Perhaps in no department of aesthetics does
supposed progress come and go from generation to generation more
easily than in music. What certain generations of musical critics have
very highly praised is often judged by their successors quite
worthless. The musical achievements of this period have, on the
contrary, been beacon lights for succeeding generations. Whenever the
principles that came to be accepted at this time have been much
departed from, musical taste has proved false and musical
accomplishment trivial. It is this sort of achievement, absolutely
enduring in its quality, which above all counts for humanity, and it
is nowhere so well illustrated in every department of intellectual
effort as during this century of Columbus.
[Illustration: GERMAN MUSICIANS PLAYING ON THE VIOLIN AND BASS VIOL
(LATE FIFTEENTH CENTURY)]
The organ, as we have it at the present time, practically came into
its modern shape during Columbus' Century. In the latter part of the
fifteenth century the pedals and their {145} application were
developed by the organ-builders of the time, and in the first half of
the sixteenth century pipes in large numbers came to be used, and the
stops were arranged as in the modern organ. There are records of
organ-building, particularly in France about the end of the first
quarter of the sixteenth century, which show that the instrument had
reached a very modern phase and that it was only a question of the
adaptation of such mechanical aids as would enable the organist to
control a greater number of pipes that was now needed to bring about
the further development of this instrument. A good idea of the
perfection of the organ at this time may be obtained from the
description of one built at St. Maurice, Angers, France, in 1511, of
which we have a detailed account in a legal process some years later.
This contained two towers of thirty-five-foot pipe, forty-eight stops
and a separate pedal. The independent pedal came into general use at
this time. About this same time the violin began to develop and came
very nearly into its modern form by the end of Columbus' Century, so
that it was ready for the perfecting process which was to take place
in the following hundred years.
{146}
CHAPTER X
BOOKS AND PRINTS: WOOD AND METAL ENGRAVING
The scholarship of this century is well known to all the world, and
the Renaissance is looked upon as the time when the deep knowledge of
the classics, the New Learning or Humanism as it was called, awoke the
modern spirit. The men of the time learned much from books. It is
interesting to note, then, how much they did for books. The
generations amply repaid the debt they owed to the past by what they
accomplished for the preservation of the ancient writings, and above
all by putting them in a worthy dress for the use and the admiration
of future generations. The Renaissance must probably be considered to
have appreciated books more than any other period in the world's
history and to have done more to give dignity, beauty and permanence
to the objects of their devotion.
It was no mere accident that just at the beginning of this period,
about 1450, the invention of printing was perfected. Books had been
rising in value and in price, though the demand had been constantly
increasing, until it was only to be expected that some method of
making them available for a much larger number of people must come.
Necessity is the mother of invention, and the need for a thing sets
men's minds at work until they have obtained it. Caxton's experience,
detailed further on in this chapter, is illuminating in this regard.
Great, however, as is the invention, the credit for which apparently
must be shared by the Germans Gutenberg, Fust and Schoeffer, the use
that was made of that invention during the century that followed is
deserving of still higher appreciation. It had indeed come to a worthy
time, but not by accident, for any time receives its deserts and wins
the rewards of its own interests and efforts.
{147}
[Illustration: BORDER FROM THE "BOOK OF HOURS"
OF ANTHONY VERARD (1488)]
If ordinary impressions were to be accepted, it might well be expected
that printing having been invented about the middle of the fifteenth
century, the first century would see industrious, but rather crude
applications of the invention, until men became accustomed to its
employment, and then gradually, by that progress which is so often
assumed to be inevitable in mankind, printing would rise to be an art
more and more beautiful as time went on, until in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries we would have the most beautiful examples of
book-making. As a matter of fact, however, during the first half
century, immediately after the preliminary tentative application of
the art, printing rose to a perfection that has never been excelled
since and only equalled in few periods.
Between 1475 and 1525 some of the most beautiful printed books ever
made were completed and {148} worthily bound. Columbus' Century can
boast the production of the most beautiful books in the world.
Succeeding centuries saw a decadence in the arts of book-making which
was progressive until the latter half of the nineteenth century. At
that time some of the worst books ever made, with poorly designed,
cheap type, still cheaper but fortunately perishable paper, sadly
inartistic illustrations and ugly bindings, were made (_perpetrated_
is the expression one book-lover has used). It must not be forgotten
that this same decadence affected everything else, and that painting
and sculpture and architecture reached their lowest ebb also in the
nineteenth century, though the book continued to be in the depths for
longer than any of the other products of the arts.
Fortunately, William Morris came to call attention to the utter
ugliness of commercialized book-making and to arouse his generation to
a noble effort for the recovery of the lost art. He demonstrated how
artistically books might be made by taking as models the printed books
of Columbus' time. He imitated as far as possible their beautiful
hand-made paper without reflecting surface, of a tint that made the
ink stand out on printed pages with wide margins and judicious
spacing, with type faces eminently suited for easy reading, and made
with an eye to real artistic quality and with ink that has not faded
all these 400 years. All these were book qualities well worthy of
emulation. The work has been taken up in many places since, and now
beautiful books are not so rare as they were, though it is doubtful
whether, even with all our mechanical appliances, our ability to sell
reasonably large editions, the prosperity of the time and the interest
of publishers and bibliophiles, we have succeeded in making any books
that we would dare to set in comparison with a number of the volumes
that were printed in Columbus' Century.
The perfection which book-making by hand had reached at the time when
printing was invented and began to come into general use made it
comparatively easy for excellent printed books to be made--excellent
in the sense both of good printing and fine illustration. The "Books
of Hours" of the later fifteenth century are among the most beautiful
volumes that were ever made. They were finely written in a dear hand,
{149} beautifully decorated, handsomely illuminated and very suitably
bound. Even the best painters did not hesitate to devote themselves to
the making of illuminated illustrations for favorite volumes. The
French were, as Dante suggests in Canto XI of the "Purgatorio," the
best illuminators in his time, and they continued to maintain this
superiority during the fifteenth century. Gerard W. Smith in his
"Painting, Spanish and French" (Illustrated Handbooks of Art History),
says that "the French school of miniature, though surpassed in
seriousness and originality by those of Flanders and Italy, was yet
skilful in appropriating many of the excellences of both. They
surpassed the former in the general composition of their subjects and
the latter in their perspective." The best known of their artist
illustrators of this time was Jean Fouquet, the Court painter of Louis
XI, whose work as painter is discussed in the chapter, Painting
Outside of Italy. The pictures by him in the illuminated Josephus in
the Paris Library are especially well known and often praised for
their freedom of invention, their variety and the perfection of detail
in their accessories. The compositions made for the illustration of
Titus Livius, Livy the Latin historian, have been pronounced admirable
for their naturalness and life. Fouquet is particularly happy in the
landscapes which he introduces into his pictures and the architectural
details which he adds. The miniature, which we have copied from the
Livy manuscript in the Bibliotheque Nationale, illustrates all of
these qualities very well and makes it clear that no element of
artistic beauty or picturesque values was lacking in the books that
were being made by hand when printing came to revolutionize the arts
of book-making.
Some of the extra-illuminated books of this period are among the most
beautiful printed books ever issued in their ornateness. Not long
since Tregaskis advertised a little Book of Hours, printed by _Simon
duBois pour maistre geofroy tori de bourges 1527,_ at sixty guineas.
He describes it as extremely rare and the first in which occurs the
Arabesque border so frequently used by Tory and his successors in
subsequent editions. Dibden, reproducing some of the borders in his
"Bibliographical Decameron," said that he had seen {150} nothing more
beautiful of this kind. Each page is printed within a varying woodcut
border of birds, fish, flowers and insects, with the initials of the
Queen Mother and of the King and Queen crowned, in combination with
the arms of France and Savoy.
[Illustration: FOUQUET, JEHAN, MINIATURE PAINTING, FROM THE LIVY MSS.
(BIBLIOTHEQUE NATIONALE, PARIS)]
This is, of course, the period when these books were most beautifully
done. There are a number of examples of them that have appeared in the
sales in recent years and have {151} commanded high prices not alone
because of their antiquity, but because of the exquisite charm of
their decorations.
It was in competition with such exquisite books that the early
printers found themselves. No wonder, then, that they were stimulated
to do beautiful work and that their best efforts were aroused. The
fine, broad enterprise of the printers of the time can be very well
appreciated from the rapid development of their art and craft by the
making of fonts of letters for all the different alphabets. Greek type
was made as early as 1465. The first book wholly printed in Greek
minuscules was Lascaris' Grammar at Milan in 1476. The first Hebrew
types appeared as early as 1475. Aldus' famous Italic type, said to be
an imitation of the handwriting of Petrarch, was introduced by Aldus
Manutius of Venice for his projected small edition of the classics.
The cutting of it was probably done by the painter Francia
(Raibolini). It was first used in the Virgil of 1500. Arabic types
were first used for the printing of a book in 1514 at Fano in Italy.
Syriac was used for printing as early as 1538, and just after the end
of Columbus' Century excellent types of this language were in use. A
Psalter was printed in Russian at Cracow as early as 1491, and the
Russian types were used at Prague in 1517. Anglo-Saxon and Irish types
were used shortly after the end of Columbus' Century.
Music printing began early, the earliest specimen of music type
occurring in Higden's "Polychronicon," printed by Wynken de Worde at
Westminster in 1495. Notes had been printed from wooden blocks
twenty-five years earlier, though some books had spaces left to be
filled in by hand. About 1500 a musical press was established at
Venice. Toward the end of the century special types and presses of
many kinds for music were invented.
The great English printer of this time, William Caxton, is a
characteristic type of the scholarly printers of the period. We know
almost nothing about his life. He records his thanks to his parents
for having given him an education that fitted him to earn a living,
though he does not say where or how he was educated. Just about the
beginning of Columbus' Century he settled at Bruges, going into
business on his own {152} account, and soon became prosperous. He had
been an apprentice to Robert Large, a wealthy London mercer of the
time, who was one of the influential men of the period. In 1453 Caxton
returned to England for his formal admittance as a member of the
Mercers' Company. His story after this is not unlike that of
Schliemann, the discoverer of Troy in our own time. He retired from
business apparently with a competency, entered the service of Margaret
Duchess of Burgundy, probably in order to have more time for his
literary work, and the next year he finished his translation from the
French of the "Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye," which was
dedicated to Margaret. His book was very much sought after and
circulated in manuscript. The task of copying it was too great and
entirely too slow for the demand. With true business instinct, Caxton
then "practysed & lerned at grete charge and dispense to ordeyne this
said book in prynte." His book was printed at Bruges in 1474. The next
year his second book, the "Game & Pleye of Chess," which he had also
translated from the French, was printed.
The following year, 1476, Caxton returned to England and set up his
own printing press at Westminster. The first issue from his press was
the "Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers," which bears the date
1477. Though he died fourteen years later, in 1491, he is said to have
issued ninety-six books from the Westminster Press in the intervening
brief period. His publications include the works of Chaucer and Gower,
Sir Thomas Malory's _"Morte d'Arthur"_ and a number of translations
from French, Latin and Dutch, most of them probably made by himself
and all of them under his editorial direction. He issued a number of
smaller pious books which show his deep religious interest. Though
brought up to a trade which he pursued successfully until he had made
money, he was a scholarly man who wrote excellent vigorous English and
had an ardent enthusiasm for literature. He is one of the greatest
forces in English prose before the sixteenth century, and with Sir
Thomas More helped to fix it in the form in which it was to pass to
the Elizabethans and be given our modern shape. His life is the best
possible evidence of the opportunities for education that abounded at
the beginning of Columbus' {153} Century, and which even those quite
outside of what would ordinarily be thought the possible chances for
the higher education might readily secure.
The story of the great printers of the Renaissance might well be
summed up in the work of the Venetian, Aldus Manutius, who was a
distinguished scholar as well as publisher. Born 1450, he was a pupil
of Guarino of Verona, and having studied Greek very faithfully,
resolved to print all the Greek classics. He adopted the handwriting
of Musurus as the model on which his Greek type was cast and then
proceeded to make arrangements for worthy publication. The ink was
made in the publishing house and only the best materials employed. He
had special paper from the mills of Fabriano, and the bookbinding was
done in a separate department of his own establishment. [Footnote 15]
The result was the magnificent set of Editiones Principes issued by
his house. The first of these was Musaeus, printed in 1493. Altogether
twenty-eight _editiones principes_ of the {154} Greek and Latin
classics were issued in some twenty-two years. His trade symbol, the
Dolphin and the Anchor, signifies speed and tenacity. In reference to
it, Aldus himself once said, "I have achieved much by patience (the
word he used was _cunctando_, literally by taking my time) and I work
without pause." As we have said, Aldus invented the form of type
called Italic, for which he received a patent from Pope Leo X. In 1500
Aldus printed the first leaf of a proposed Bible in Hebrew, Greek and
Latin--a Polyglot Bible which was never completed. His work was
carried on after his death in 1515 by the Asolani, his
brothers-in-law, and later by Paolo Manuzio, his son, and afterwards
by another Aldus, his grandson. In 1518 the Aeschylus was printed, and
there was then no extant Greek classic of the first rank unprinted.
[Footnote 15: The lofty motives that impelled men to take up the art
of printing can be very well appreciated from some expressions of
Aldus in this matter. As a boy he had been shy, awkward and
retiring, and although receiving his education in the best schools
of Ferrara and Rome, he had not shown any marked ability. For a time
he seems to have studied for the priesthood, but instead became a
tutor for princely houses. This gave him sufficient for his modest
tastes and a quiet, scholarly life. At the age of forty he gave up
this career, and with little money began to edit and prepare for
printing the works of almost forgotten Greek authors. This was about
the time that Columbus launched his vessels to sail to America.
Early as this date might seem to be in the history of the art,
printing had already been overdone. When Aldus reached Venice there
were or had been 160 printers or publishers in that city. Most of
them were poor, some of them were bankrupt and none of them were
making any money that might be expected to tempt a man of forty
without experience to take up a business career. The state of the
trade at Rome was scarcely better. Italy was disturbed by rumors of
impending war. It was under these conditions that Aldus declared in
the preface of one of his early books:
"I have made a vow to devote my life to the public good. God is my
witness that this is my most earnest desire. ... I leave a
peaceable life, preferring this which is laborious and exacting.
... Man was not born for pleasure unworthy of an elevated spirit,
but for duties which dignify him. Let us leave to the vile the
lower life of animals."]
Aldus devoted himself to the printing of the classics and quite
neglected the theological works which were so popular, at least among
the printers of the time. After seven years of the hardest kind of
work he said, "In this seventh year of my self-imposed task I can
truly say--yes, under oath--that I have not during these long years
had one hour of peaceful rest." In 1498, perhaps from overwork, but
more likely from neglect of the ordinary care of nature in regular
eating and sleeping, he came down with a severe illness. During his
illness his thoughts went back to his student days and he vowed that
he would become a priest if he recovered. After his recovery, however,
he asked and obtained a release from this obligation. The next year he
married the daughter of an eminent brother printer, Torresano of
Asola, and though there was great difference in their ages, Aldus
being fifty and his wife scarcely twenty, it seems to have proved a
happy marriage. Aldus health was better cared for after this, and then
his thrifty father-in-law, who was a successful publisher, probably
helped him with many suggestions, as a consequence of which Aldus made
his books cheaper and more widely salable, and henceforth we have less
querulousness over the neglect of the public to buy.
Aldus was one of the busiest of men. His motto was _festina lente_
(make haste slowly). He says in one of his books, "You do not know how
busy I am; the care I have to give to {155} my publications does not
allow me proper time to eat or sleep." In self-defence against bores,
and it is easy to understand how many there might be in this period of
reawakened interest in scholarship who would think that they could
occupy a few hours pleasantly and profitably for themselves in Aldus'
establishment, he put this warning on his door:
"Whoever you are, Aldus entreats you to be brief. When you have
spoken, leave him, unless you come like Hercules to help Atlas, weary
of his burden. Know that there is work here for everyone who enters
the door." Practically every important printer and publicist ever
since has had to try to protect himself and his time in some similar
way. Human nature, or at least the human nature of bores, has not
changed any in these five centuries.
In spite of all that he did for his generation, he met with little of
gratitude and almost less of personal appreciation. There were many
distinguished scholars who were dear personal friends, there were many
high ecclesiastics who admired and helped him, there were many noble
patrons and clients of his house who must have brought him much
consolation. But he had his critics as well: Erasmus could not refrain
from some biting witticisms with regard to the frugality of his table,
being himself somewhat of a glutton. Scaliger indeed said of him that
he drank like three, but did only half the work of one man, while
Aldus was very abstemious. Besides, Aldus complained that his books
were fraudulently reprinted, that his workmen were tempted away from
him after he had trained them, and that he even had to defend himself
against the treachery of his own employees at times. Already at that
time they were beginning to complain of the injustice done the author
by lack of copyright. Erasmus complained: "Our lawmakers do not
concern themselves about the matter. He who sells English cloth for
Venetian cloth is punished, but he who sells corrupt texts in place of
good ones goes free. Innumerable are the books that are corrupted,
especially in Germany. There are restraints on bad bakers, but none on
bad printers, and there is no corner of the earth where bad books do
not go."
A writer in the old _Scribner's Magazine_ for October, 1881, summed up
what Aldus had accomplished for his profession {156} in a paragraph
that evidently comes from a man who knows his subject well and
probably in the modern time has faced some of the problems that Aldus
had to meet, though with the advantage of the experience of over four
centuries since to help him in solving them.
"Considering the difficulties he had to encounter, not the least of
them the difficulty of getting compositors who could read Greek MSS.
and compose Greek types, it is a wonder that they are as correct as
they are. Some of them are above reproach. When he offered to the
reader of his edition of Plato, as he did in the preface of that
book, a gold crown for every discovered error, he must have had a
confidence in its accuracy which comes only from the consciousness
of thorough editorial work. Aldus' taste as editor went beyond the
text. Not content with an accurate version, he had that version
presented in pleasing types. Everybody admits the value of his
invention of Italic, even if his use of it as a text-letter be not
approved. But few persons consider that we are indebted to Aldus for
the present forms that he introduced. How great this obligation is
will be readily acknowledged after an examination of the uncouth
characters and the discordant styles of Greek copyists before the
sixteenth century. Aldus' invention of small capitals has already
been noticed. Here, then, are three distinct styles of book-printing
types which he introduced, and which have been adopted everywhere
almost without dissent. Other printers have done work of high merit;
other type-founders have made pleasing ornamental or fancy types; but
no printer or founder since Aldus has invented even one original
style of printing types which has been adopted and kept in use as a
text-letter for books." [Footnote 16]
[Footnote 16: It was after Grolier's visit to Aldus in Italy that he
took up the making of that collection of beautifully bound and
printed books which have since made him famous; he evidently owed
the inspiration not a little to the great Italian printer.]
The other most distinguished printer of Columbus' Century whose career
deserves to be sketched at some length was the Frenchman, Geoffrey
Tory or Trinus, who is not so well known as Aldus, coming a little
later in history, but whose work was of the highest artistic
character.
{157}
[Illustration: BORDER FROM "BOOK OF HOURS," GEOFFREY TORY (1525)]
Like Aldus, he was of poor parents, but attended the best schools in
the Province of Berry toward the end of the fifteenth century and then
travelled in Italy. He afterwards became instructor in Paris in the
College de Plessis, edited an edition of Pomponius Mela, which was
published by Jean Petit, and prepared "AEneas Sylvius" and other works
for Estienne the Elder. Fond of art, Tory began to practise
wood-engraving and gave up his teaching to study wood-engraving in
Italy. He supported himself while studying by painting miniatures for
the adornment of manuscripts and printed books and became a great
master of his chosen art. He engraved initials, characters and borders
for Simon de Collines in Paris, and his work shows the fullest
acquaintance with all the resources of his art. His plates marked with
the Cross of {158} Lorraine are now considered worthy of a very high
place in every choice collection.
His principal contribution to book-making was his remarkable original
work called "Champ Fleury." This book was divided into three parts for
the instruction of printers. The first of these parts contained a
treatise upon the proper use of letters. The second treated of the
origin of the capital letter and its proper place. The third contained
accurate drawings of letters and a large number of alphabets of
various kinds, so that proper selection of type might be made for
various kinds of books and varying sizes according to space and page.
This work had a far-reaching influence. One result was an immediate
and complete revolution in French typography and orthography--the
abandonment of the Gothic and the adoption of the new cutting of
antique type. After having been used for several centuries, the faces
of the type thus produced were abandoned for a time and are now being
revived. In this book also Tory laid down the rules for the proper use
in French of the accents, apostrophe and marks of punctuation. He did
more than anyone else to settle these vexed problems of usage for the
world. The publication of the book won from Francis I, himself a
scholar and patron of learning and an author to whom so much is owed
in the French Renaissance, the title of King's Printer. Some of Tory's
borders are illustrated on these pages. They have been fruitful models
full of suggestion for such work ever since.
With the development of printing, the need of methods of multiplying
illustrations for printed books soon made itself felt and was finely
responded to by the genius of the century. Wood-engraving in the
service of book-illustration came in very early in the history of
printing and was, after all, only a development of the wooden blocks,
out of which the first idea of movable types had originally sprung. It
was very crude at the beginning, and yet often with an artistic
expression that gives it great interest. Its possibilities for
printing in company with movable types soon began to be realized, and
as printed books became more beautiful and type faces more artistic,
the necessity for supplying artistic illustrations was felt, and then
it was not long before the need was supplied. Probably the {159} first
wood-engraving designed for book-illustration which exhibits a marked
artistic quality was "The Dream of Poliphilo," in which, as Woodberry
says in his "History of Wood-Engraving," "Italian wood-engraving,
quickened by the spirit of the Renaissance, displayed its most
beautiful creation." It was written by a Venetian monk, Francesco
Colombo, in 1467, and was first printed by Aldus in 1499. The subject
was a worthy one, for though the book is a strange mingling of Greek,
Latin, Hebrew and Arabic traditions and poetic symbolism, it typifies
the spirit of the Renaissance. It represents the search of youth for
the loveliness of universal nature and the perfection of ancient art
under the title of Polia, the charming maiden who combines all the
qualities. Altogether there are 192 designs. They have been attributed
to many illustrious masters, even John Bellini and Raphael, among
others, but were probably due to Benedetto Montagna.
How soon illustration came to aid in the understanding of the text in
books is very well illustrated by Fra Giocondo's work. When, in 1508,
he published the letters of the younger Pliny in the Aldine edition,
he not only described but illustrated the villas of the ancients. In
1511 he edited the Aldine edition of Vitruvius, with its rude woodcuts
that are yet much more thoroughly illustrative than many a more
ambitious modern book and which include the first modern plan of a
Roman house. When he issued his Aldine edition of Caesar in 1513 this
was illustrated with the earliest of all modern drawings of Caesar's
bridge across the Rhine. Fra Giocondo is in fact the true father of
the illustrated classic, as Sandys suggested in his Harvard Lectures
on the "Revival of Learning" (Cambridge University Press, 1905). It
may be well to add that the good friar was no mere student for
erudition's sake, since, as is noted in the chapter on architecture,
he entered the royal service in France, and in 1497 designed one at
least, if not two, of the noble bridges that still span the Seine.
The great improvement which came in book-illustration and the making
of prints we owe to Albrecht Duerer, who not only was the first to
discover the capacities of wood-engraving as a mode of artistic
expression, but who saw immediately that it could not equal the rival
art of copperplate-engraving in that delicacy of line and depth of
tone on which the metal-engraving depends for its excellence, but
appreciating the limitations, Duerer prescribed the materials and
processes of wood-engraving.
{160}
[Illustration: PAGE OF "BOOK OF HOURS" MADE FOR SIMON DE COLLINES (TORY)]
{161}
He increased the size of the cuts, gave breadth and boldness to the
lines and obtained new and pleasing effects from strong contrasts of
black and white. As Woodberry in his "History of Wood-Engraving"
(Harper's, New York, 1883) says: "He thus showed the true method of
wood-engraving; but the art owes to him much more than this: he
brought to the practice of it the hand and brain of a great master,
lifted it, a mechanic's trade, into the service of high imagination
and vigorous interest and placed it among the fine arts--a deed of far
more importance than any improvements in processes or methods." In so
doing, may we add that he only accomplished what so many of his
contemporaries did in other arts. The goldsmiths became sculptors and
painters, the decorators became true artists and the scholars learned
from their classical books to execute what they had studied in the
ancients.
It would be hard to say enough of Duerer's wood-engravings. His prints
must be allowed to talk for themselves. Unfortunately, owing to limit
of space, we are only able to give one of them, but that will furnish
an excellent example of the marvellous qualities Duerer succeeded in
expressing, in what might have seemed before this time a hopelessly
coarse medium. The first of the four famous series of designs by which
his skill in wood-engraving is first shown was published in 1498, but
it was probably finished before that time. It consisted of fifteen
large woodcuts in illustration of the Apocalypse of St. John, to which
a vignette of wonderful nobility and simplicity was prefixed.
Other men did wonderful work in this new medium, after Duerer had shown
them the way, though none of them surpassed or perhaps even equalled
their master. Portions of the triumphal procession of Maximilian by
Hans Burgkmaier show that his disciples were thoroughly capable of
following in his footsteps. Such men as Hans Schaeuffelin and Hans
Springinklee, as well as Hans Baldung, far surpassed most of their
successors in the artistic quality of their wood-engraving. Lucas van
Leyden and the Cranachs show how artists took to {162} this new mode
of expression, and a series of men working in this century prove the
wonderful power of the time to stimulate men's genius.
Besides Duerer and the group who were largely influenced by him, one
man, Hans Holbein, deserves special mention because he illustrates
especially the connection of the new art with book-making. Holbein
commenced to practise wood-engraving as soon as he settled in Basel at
about the age of twenty. He began by designing the title page, initial
letters and woodcuts for the publishers of that period. He illustrated
the books of the humanists, especially the "Utopia" of Sir Thomas
More, then a new and popular work, and afterwards designed the
woodcuts for the Biblical translation of Luther, and he did some
excellent caricature work. He is a realist and has illustrated
particularly humble life, incidents of the daily doings of peasants
and children, and these scenes are sometimes introduced as the
background of initial letters, some twenty alphabets of which are
ascribed to him. Geoffrey Tory in France introduced a classical spirit
into wood-engraving, and the sculptors, Jean Cousin and Bernard
Salomon and especially Jean Goujon, who made some excellent cuts for
Vitruvius (1547), and a group of other illustrators in France, serve
to show how the art spread and was used all over the world.
Another interesting development both in prints and in
book-illustration came in the gradual evolution of metal-engraving,
which, like wood-engraving, reached some of its highest perfection in
Germany. Martin Schongauer, who died in 1488, is the first important
name, though he was preceded by an unknown German engraver usually
spoken of as "The Master of 1466." Schongauer used curved shading and
greatly developed the technique. After him came Duerer, who lifted
metal-engraving, especially copperplate-engraving, into the realm of
art. Probably nothing illustrates so well his power of minute
observation as some of his copperplates. His animals are reproduced
with fidelity and charm, and in the early days of landscape painting
he studied every leaf and branch and tree trunk and knew how to
picture just what he saw. The climax of artistic quality was reached
by Marcantonio in Italy, who worked under the direction of Raphael.
After the work of these masters there was very little left to be added
by subsequent engravers.
{163}
[Illustration: DUeRER, MARRIAGE OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN (WOODCUT, 1511)]
{164}
How much the illustration of books was helped by this new development
of art can be very readily appreciated by those who know some of the
old books. Even technical books, such as text-books of anatomy, were
beautifully illustrated from copperplates that are not merely
conventional pictures, but often real works of art. The plates for
Vesalius' anatomy were probably prepared under the direction of Titian
by one of his best students, Kalkar, and Eustachius' anatomical plates
probably also had the counsel of a great artist. [Footnote 17]
[Footnote 17: How much the book-making and bookbinding of this
period is appreciated in our time will perhaps be best and most
easily realized from the following item: "At the sale of Lady
Brooke's Library at Sotheby's, Mr. Quaritch bought for $1,500 the
well-preserved copy of Livy, dated 1543, in a fine contemporary
morocco binding, and paid $1,475 for a copy, dated 1533. of Petrus
Martyr's _'De Rebus Oceanicis, et Orbe Novo'"_ (New York _Herald_,
Nov. 26, 1913).]
While the inside of the book was cared for so thoroughly and
thoughtfully the outside of it was not neglected. This is the period
when the most beautiful bindings in the world were made. The name of
the Grolier Club in New York is testimony to this, for when our
American bibliophiles wanted to name their association worthily they
took their title from the great book-lover of Columbus' Century, Jean
Grolier, the Treasurer of France, who did so much to encourage the
beautiful book-making of the time. The collection of books made by
Grolier is probably the most famous ever brought together. They were
beautifully printed on the best of paper as a rule and most fittingly
and artistically bound. The life history of practically every one of
them has been traced, and many a book-lover has purchased immortality
at a comparatively cheap price by having at some time or other been in
possession of one of Grolier's books, for the name of every possessor
is chronicled as a rule. Many a book-owner of our time has his only
chance for being known in the time to come from the fact that he has
one of Grolier's books in his library.
{165}
[Illustration: BLACK-LETTER WITH BORDERED PAGE (1520)]
{166}
The beautiful bindings need to be seen to be appreciated, but every
phase of artistic adornment in books was exhausted. While leather was
the favorite material for binding, silk and tapestry and plush were
used, and ornamentation of all kinds, metal, tortoise shell and
precious stones, was employed. There probably was never more taste
displayed than at this time, and though subsequent workmen learned to
finish much better, the best bindings of the modern time scarcely
compare with those of Columbus' period in artistic quality.
Brander Matthews in his "Bookbindings, Old and New," said: "We must
confess that there are very few finishers (of books) of our time who
have originality of invention, freshness of composition or
individuality of taste." He proceeds to say that in our time we have a
more certain handicraft, but less artistic quality. The handicraft has
improved, the art has declined. The hand has gained skill, but the
head has lost its force.
In our time we are again coming to appreciate properly the value of
beautiful books. There have been periods between ours and Columbus'
Century when only the most sordid ideas obtained in the book world, or
when bad taste ruled and book-binding, like printing and the other
arts, had a period of decadence after the sixteenth century, that is
hard to explain, though it is easy to find reasons for it, and which
continued to sink books into ever greater and greater lack of artistic
qualities until almost the twentieth century. Out of that pit dug by
neglect of interest in the beautiful as well as the useful we are now
climbing, but unfortunately many of our time are inclined to think
that this is the first time there has been that emergence, though we
are only beginning, as yet distantly, to imitate the beauties of
book-making in the mediaeval and Renaissance periods.
Even more interesting for the modern time is the attitude of these
great collectors of books of Columbus' time toward their precious
treasures. They did not consider that they belonged to themselves
alone, but to all those capable of using them. The distinguished
Italian collector who preceded Grolier, Maioli, had the motto printed
on his books, _Tho. Maioli et amicorum_--that is, "the property of
Thomas Maioli and his friends." A number of other book-collectors,
including Grolier, imitated this. Maioli is said to have had the true
amateur spirit and to have taken up the making of beautiful bindings
for himself. Geoffrey Tory also devoted himself to {167} bookbinding
as well as to wood-engraving and his work for the printers. In a word
it was a time when men were intent on making the book just as
beautiful as possible, while all the time bearing in mind that its
utility must be its principal characteristic.
[Illustration: PLAYING CARD, FRANCE, FIFTEENTH CENTURY]
{168}
{169}
BOOK II
THE BOOK OF THE DEEDS
CHAPTER I
SOCIAL WORK AND WORKERS
Any century that does not display an important evolution of works for
the benefit of the poor whom we have "always with us," of organized
effort for the ailing who are inevitable in the present state of man's
existence, as well as some general recognition of social duty towards
the great body of men and women who must always be helped to make
something out of their lives, because they lack initiative and power
of accomplishment for themselves, does not deserve a place among the
great centuries of human existence. Columbus' Century is in this
regard one of the notable periods of human history. It saw the
building of magnificent hospitals in many countries, a phase of its
history so full of importance that we have had to reserve its
treatment for a special chapter on hospitals. It saw the organization
of many means of helping the poor, and particularly of definite
methods for the care of the old and the young, for the disabled and
unfortunate, and the origin of the institutions through which the poor
for their little pledges might secure loans to tide them over the
recurring crises of existence. Besides there were many asylums, in the
best sense of the word, founded for the care of the insane and chronic
sufferers of other kinds, and many other institutions of charity were
organized and established in such forms as to do the greatest possible
amount of good. Above all, this century saw the establishment of a
number of religious orders which were to accomplish social reforms of
many kinds, and the founders of which were to provide by their example
and {170} advice the proper encouragement for many charitable
foundations.
The most interesting development of helpfulness at this time came in
connection with the many guilds which reached their highest
development at the end of the fifteenth century. These guilds took
care of the disabled, supported the old, took charge of orphans, gave
technical training to the children, founded schools in many places and
often sent the more intelligent boys even to the university, and
provided various entertainments during the year for the members of the
guilds and their neighbors and townsfolk. How universal was their
effect upon the life for instance of the English people will be best
appreciated from the calculation of Toulmin Smith, whose authority in
all that relates to the history of the English guilds is unquestioned,
that there were some thirty thousand of these brotherhood institutions
in existence in England about the beginning of the sixteenth century.
They touched every phase of the social life of the time and helped in
the solution of many of the social problems. They provided insurance
for their members against loss by fire, by robbery, at sea, by the
fall of a house, by imprisonment and even against loss from flood.
There was insurance against the loss of sight, against the loss of
limb or any other form of crippling. The deaf and dumb might be
insured so as to secure an income for them and corresponding relief
for leprosy might be obtained, so that if one were set apart from the
community by the law requiring segregation of lepers there might be
provision for food and lodging even though productive work had become
impossible. [Footnote 18] There was also insurance for the farmer
against the loss of cattle and farm products.
[Footnote 18: Walsh, "The Thirteenth Greatest of Centuries,"
Catholic Summer School Press Appendix, fifth edition, New York,
1912.]
There were no poorhouses and no orphan asylums. We have just come to
recognize once more that the best possible guardian, as a rule, for
children is their mother, if she is alive. It is cheaper in the end to
help her to keep the family together than to put them into
institutions, and the home training is almost infinitely better. They
recognized this fact very {171} clearly in the later Middle Ages and
in Columbus' Century, and if mother were dead, and father could not
keep the children, which was very rarely the case, or if both parents
were dead, the children were distributed in families which adopted
them with the specific agreement that they should be looked upon as
members of the family. The guild officials looked after these children
and saw that they were not abused and obtained special opportunities
for their training, and supplied a dowry very often for the girls when
they married. Indeed, there was a tradition that "the children of the
guild," as these orphans were called, were likely to have better
opportunities in life than those whose parents were still living.
In spite of all their care for the poor, the time had, as every time
has had, the problem of the ne'er-do-well, the man with the
_wanderlust,_ who will not settle down anywhere and cannot be expected
to keep steadily at work. They dealt with what we have come to call
the tramp rather well. Above all, they avoided many of the abuses of
public begging. The method is worth while noting. When a member of the
guild died every member was expected to attend his funeral. Those that
did not were fined a small sum, but yet sufficient to deter them from
neglecting this obligation unless compelled by some necessity. These
fines went into the common fund for the benefit of the poor and were
given as alms for the intention of the dead brother's soul. Besides,
every member was expected to give a small coin as further alms for the
dead, and this sum of money was deposited with the treasurer of the
guild for this special purpose. Each one who gave an alms was handed a
token, which he might use as he saw fit. When a member of a guild met
someone who looked as though he needed help, instead of giving him
money he handed him this token and then the beggar might obtain
whatever he needed most--food, lodging or clothing--by presenting the
token to the treasurer of the guild, the sexton of the church or any
of the church wardens or the clergy. This prevented the abuse of
charity, gave immediate relief where it was needed and did not
pauperize, because the person benefited knew that the intention in
what was given him was the benefit of a dead brother's soul and not
merely pity for him.
{172}
The number and efficiency of the activities of the guild can be best
understood from a study of the history of the Guild of the Holy Cross
at Stratford. Owing to the fact that interest in Shakespeare has led
to a very careful study of every possible scrap of information with
regard to the life of the town during the century before his time, we
are in possession of many details with regard to it. The Guild of the
Holy Cross at Stratford came to represent nearly every form of
initiative for the good of the townspeople. They had their periodic
banquets, provided pageants, took care of the poor, built almshouses
that were very different from poorhouses, cared for the orphans and
disabled and supported the grammar school as well as helping some of
their members to the higher education. The guild became so famous for
its benefactions to the life of the town that distinguished members of
the nobility and judges, members of the professions and prominent
merchants from all the surrounding neighborhood asked and obtained the
privilege of becoming members. The guild acquired property and had a
definite income. We know that in 1481 it acquired the rectory of
Little Wilmcote, where the Ardens, the ancestors of Shakespeare's
mother, had property, with all its profits.
One very interesting development in Stratford shows the difference
between the poorhouses of subsequent centuries and the almshouses of
Columbus' Century. Just next to the Guild School and Chapel in
Stratford there is a row of little houses rather strange looking now,
but not so unlike the houses of the time in which they were erected as
to be noticeable. There are a dozen or more of these in which the aged
poor were to live, husband and wife occupying the ground floor of a
little house by themselves. Places were also provided in the upper
stories of these houses for the widowers, spinsters and old bachelors
who had become too old for work. They are neat little quarters, in
which the old folks still live contented and which the visitor to
Stratford finds of very great interest. The guild chapel not being far
away, a few hundred feet from the farthest of them, even the feeblest
of the old people who were not actually bedridden could have the
consolation of going to church and special services at convenient
hours {173} were held for them. As a matter of fact, after the
rebuilding of the chapel by Sir Hugh Clopton, a great many of the
townspeople, except on high festival days, used to go to the guild
chapel because of its convenience rather than to Trinity Church
outside the town. The boys at the guild school hard by played in their
yard, where the old folk could see them, thus providing the best
possible pastime for their elders, while during the day the busy
traffic of a main travelled road went by them, furnishing further
distraction.
The grammar school which was founded and supported by the guild
deserves particular mention. It was free to the children of the
members of the guild, and the schoolmaster was forbidden to take
anything from his pupils. The master of the guild paid him an annual
salary. The date of its origin used to be set down as 1453, but it is
now known to have been in existence much earlier, though a thorough
reorganization took place at this time, giving rise to the idea of its
actual foundation. How successful it was in its work may be gathered
from the number of Stratford men who came to hold high positions in
England--there being no less than three Lord Chancellors in one
century--and from what we know of it in Shakespeare's time. It was
suppressed under Henry VIII, but owing to the disaffection among the
people it, as well as a number of other institutions of the kind, were
reestablished under Edward VI and have come to be known as Edward VI
Grammar Schools. As Gairdner has emphasized, there is very little
reason for this designation. The new foundations were made most
grudgingly and economically, considering the vast funds that had been
confiscated. The grammar school was so effective in its teaching,
however, that even the merchants' sons in Stratford wrote to one
another in rather good Latin. Some of the letters are extant.
Some of these details serve to show very well the character of the
social work accomplished by the guild, especially in its school and
its almhouses. Sir Sidney Lee continues: "But in 1547 all these
advantages ceased: The guild was dissolved and all the property came
into the royal treasure." The account of what happened to some of
these long-established funds for the benefit of the poor and of
education is to be {174} found in his chapter. They were transferred
to favorites of the King, who used them for various unworthy purposes
and, above all, merely to keep up with the pampered luxury of the
time.
Rev. Augustus Jessop, the Anglican rector of Seaming, in his volume of
essays, "Before the Great Pillage," tells of other parts of England
and that "the almshouses in which old men and women were fed and
clothed were robbed to the last pound, the poor almsfolk being turned
out in the cold at an hour's warning to beg their bread. Hospitals for
the sick and needy, sometimes magnificently provided with nurses and
chaplains, whose very _raison d'etre_ was that they were to look after
the care for those who were past caring for themselves, these were
stripped of all their belongings, the inmates sent out to hobble into
some convenient dry ditch to lie down and die, or to crawl into some
barn or hovel, there to be tended, nor without fear of consequences,
by some kindly man or woman who could not bear to see a suffering
fellow-creature drop down and die at their own door-posts."
How all this fine organization of social work ended has often been a
mystery to students of the social history of this time. It is not
difficult to understand, however, when the happenings of the latter
part of Columbus' Century are recalled. Sir Sidney Lee, in his
"Stratford-on-Avon," has told the story of the end of things so far as
Stratford is concerned. I prefer to let him tell the story (page 101):
"The politicians who surrounded Henry VIII and Edward VI found the
destruction of religious corporations not more satisfactory to their
consciences than to their purses. In 1545 and in 1547 commissioners
came to Stratford to report upon the possessions and constitution of
the Guild of the Holy Cross. The income was estimated at fifty
pounds, one shilling, eleven pence halfpenny, of which twenty-one
pounds, six shillings and eight pence was paid as salary to four
chaplains. There was a clerk, who received four shillings a year;
and Oliver Baker, who saw to the clock (outside the chapel),
received thirteen shillings and four pence. 'Upon the {175} premises
was a free school, and William Dalam, the schoolmaster, had yearly
for teaching ten pounds. 'There is also given yearly,' the report
runs, 'to xxiiij poor men, brethren of the said guild, lxiijs:iijd;
vz. xs. to be bestowed in coals, and the rest given in ready money;
besides one house there called the Almshouse; and besides v. or
vjli. given them of the good provision of the master of the same
guild.'"
[Illustration: CHAPEL OF GUILD AT STRATFORD AND ALMHOUSES
(RESTORED BY SIR HUGH CLOPTON, 1500)]
A typical instance of the way that wealthy men looked at their social
duties during Columbus' Century is to be found in the case of Sir Hugh
Clopton of Stratford-on-Avon. He was the Lord Mayor in 1492 and,
having never married, he devoted his leisure and his wealth to
philanthropy. Earlier in life he had made his fortune as a merchant in
London. It was he who built New Place, which afterwards became
Shakespeare's property. Just across the street stood the chapel of the
guild and, as Sir Hugh was a prominent member when this edifice sadly
needed restoration at the end of the fifteenth century, he provided
for this. The chancel was left untouched, but the nave and tower as we
have it were rebuilt by him. He died before the work was finished, but
left enough money to secure its completion. It is a charming example
of the perpendicular Gothic of the time and was decorated by elaborate
paintings illustrating the history of the Holy Cross. {176} These
paintings were afterwards covered with whitewash, because the
"reforming" spirit could not tolerate such representations, but in
recent years some of them have been partly uncovered, disclosing how
interestingly the work was done.
[Illustration: SIR HUGH CLOPTON'S BRIDGE AT STRATFORD-ON-AVON]
Still more interesting, and perhaps the present generation will
consider it more practical, was Sir Hugh's rebuilding in solid stone
of the old wooden bridge over the Avon at Stratford. It was
constructed of free stone, with fourteen arches, and a long causeway
also of Stone, well walled on each side, was added to it. How much
this was needed can be judged from what Leland the antiquary, who
visited Stratford about 1530 on a tour through England, noted in his
account of his journey as to the great value of this gift. "Afore the
time of Hugh Clopton," he wrote, "there was but a poor bridge of
timber, and no causeway to come to it, whereby many poor folks either
refused to come to Stratford when the river was up, or coming thither
stood in jeopardy of life." The bridge is still standing to convince
us of the workmanlike thoroughness with which its foundations were
laid.
{177}
When Sir Hugh Clopton came to make his will, Stratford largely
benefited in other ways, as Mr. Sidney Lee, to whom we owe most of
these details, has noted in his "Stratford-on-Avon" (London: Seeley &
Co., 1907, page 94):
"He bequeathed also C. marks to be given to xx. poor maidens of good
name and fame dwelling in Stratford, i.e., to each of them five
marks apiece at their marriage; and likewise CI. to the poor
householders in Stratford; as also Lli. to the new building, 'the
cross aisle in the Parish Church there' (Dugdale). The testator did
not, at the same time, forget the needs of the poor of London, or
their hospitals; and on behalf of poor scholars at the Universities,
he established six exhibitions at Cambridge and Oxford, each of the
annual value of four pounds for five years." [Footnote 19]
[Footnote 19: It might possibly be thought that there were few
opportunities for the making of fortunes of any significance in
England at this time, and that therefore Sir Hugh Clopton's
example would mean very little. As a matter of fact, however, this
was the time when above all, fortunes were made rapidly and money
flowed into England more than ever before. Taine in his "History
of English Literature" quotes Acts of Parliament, the "Compendious
Examination," by William Strafford, and other government documents
which make this clear. He sums the situation up by saying:
"Towards the close of the fifteenth century, the impetus was
given commerce and the woollen trade made a sudden advance, and
such an enormous one that cornfields were changed into pasture
lands, 'whereby the inhabitants of the said town (Manchester)
have gotten and come into riches and wealthy livings' so that in
1553, forty thousand pieces of cloth were exported in English
ships. It was already the England which we see to-day a land of
meadows, green, intersected by hedgerows, crowded with cattle,
abounding in ships, a manufacturing, opulent land, with a people
of beef-eating toilers, who enrich it while they enrich
themselves. They improved agriculture to such an extent, that in
half a century the produce of an acre was doubled."]
Sir Hugh Clopton's many benefactions illustrate very thoroughly the
feeling of many of those who had made money at this time, that they
were stewards of their wealth for the benefit of the community. Civic
philanthropy is sometimes supposed to be a much more modern idea than
this century, and what was given for charity is sometimes thought to
have been but poorly directed. As a matter of fact, wealthy men were
{178} at least as thoughtful of their benefactions in that time as in
our own. If Sir Hugh Clopton's varied works for his towns-people are
to be considered as typical, and everything points to such a
conclusion, they were even more likely to do enduring good. He did not
specialize, but where he found a good work to do he did it. Indeed,
the whole story of doing good for others in this time deserves the
study of the modern time, because of its solution of many problems
that we are facing now.
An interesting phase of their collections for charity was the
continuance of the old custom which had existed for several centuries,
of having a special day on which everyone who was approached by
certain solicitors for charity was expected to give something. This
was usually the day after Whit-Sunday. Sometimes in the English
villages, at the entrance to a bridge, or across a market place or the
main street of the town, a rope was stretched and everyone who passed
had to pay a toll for charity. Our modern "tag day" was a revival of
this custom, though in the mediaeval towns, where everybody knew
everybody else, there were less social dangers in the custom.
The Low Countries were very prosperous at this time and took up
seriously the problem of helping the poor. As we have told more in
detail in the chapter on "Hospitals and Care for the Insane," the
order of Beguines took up the nursing and the visiting of the poor,
and in many places the Beguinages assumed the character to some extent
of institutions for the care of the poor. The word poorhouses has
becomes so unfortunate in its connotations that one would scarcely
think of using it in connection with these almost separate
village-like communities, with abundance of air and light, in which
the young women of the better classes took up their own life in small,
neat, attractive houses and cared for the aged poor and children in
little houses not far from their own. A great number of dependents
were maintained mainly out of the revenues derived from the incomes
which these young women of the better classes brought with them into
the institution and from the funds contributed by friends who were
interested in their good work. Our modern settlements are like them in
certain {179} ways, but there are so many differences in favor of the
older institutions, which represent indeed an almost ideal way of
exercising charity, that the contrast is striking.
Many of the religious orders that were doing such good work in
Columbus' time have gone through many vicissitudes. Governments have
often turned to enrich their favorites at the expense of charitable
foundations in their hands, and it has been an easy way for
politicians to get money. In spite of all this, some of them continue
to do their work even at the present time. Among these the Beguines
are particularly worthy of note. After the union of Holland and
Belgium, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, William of
Holland attempted to abrogate many of the rights of the Beguines and
confiscate much of their property. The municipality of Ghent, in which
the largest Beguinage was situated, sent a protest, in which they
catalogued the great services of the order in times of war and
epidemics, and the unfriendly purpose of the Holland Government was
changed. In the nineteenth century the list of good works accomplished
by the Beguines is very striking and some of them have been listed by
Miss Nutting and Miss Dock in their "History of Nursing":
"In 1809-10 the Beguines of Belgium had devoted their whole strength
to the service of the army during an epidemic of fever. During the
war of 1813 their buildings were turned into hospitals, and after
Waterloo they literally gave all they had to relieve the
overwhelming distress. In 1832, 1849, and 1853 they again served
nobly in cholera epidemics. Besides their readiness as nurses, they
have likewise not been wanting as good citizens. In 1821 they
contributed a generous sum toward the establishment of municipal
industrial workshops, and have often acted as an aid society in
dispensing contributions to sufferers from natural disasters, such
as inundations and fires." That is a brief nineteenth-century
chronicle of a charitable organization that was at an acme of its
usefulness in Columbus' Century.
Such functions of helpfulness for those in need are now exercised by
various organizations which are of comparatively {180} recent date.
Because these organizations are new, it is often supposed that the
duties which they now fulfil were either quite unknown or almost
entirely overlooked in the older time. It only requires a little study
of the details of the social life and the organization of charity
before the Reformation to appreciate how much was accomplished by the
various religious orders. It has been so much the custom in
English-speaking countries particularly to think that the religious
were mainly occupied in their own little concerns, selfishly intent on
the accumulation of means to enable them to live in idleness, that
their real place in the life of the olden time has been almost
entirely lost sight of. They represented the charitable organizations
of all kinds that have come into prominence during this last few
generations and that were so sadly needed. Their duties were
accomplished by men and women who resigned all hope of profit for
themselves and gave themselves entirely to these good works, thus
obviating many of the abuses that are now beginning to be so manifest
in charity organization.
The story of the establishment of the Monti di Pieta, lending
institutions for the poor in Italy, is one of the most interesting
chapters not alone in the social work of this period, but of all
periods. The original suggestion for them came from that great
scholar, preacher and worker for the good of the people, St.
Bernardine of Siena, who died just before the opening of Columbus'
Century. Their organization, however, we owe to Blessed Bernardine of
Feltre, that worthy son of St. Francis of Assisi, who is generally
represented in his pictures with that symbol of a Monte di Pieta, a
little green hill composed of three mounds and on the top either a
cross or a standard, with the inscription, _"Curam illius habe"_ (Have
the care of it). As thus established these institutions, the Monti di
Pieta, were charitable lending houses, where the poor could obtain
money readily for pledges and usually with very little cost to them
beyond the repayment of the loan. At that time it was felt that
charity might well care for the poor to this extent, and it was the
custom for wealthy people who died to leave legacies by which
unredeemed pledges of household necessaries might be restored to the
poor without {181} the repayment of the loan. Such legacies, by the
way, are not unusual even yet in the Latin countries, and at least two
have been chronicled within the year. The spirit of these institutions
was excellent and they accomplished great good, spreading all over
Italy and finding their way in some form into the Latin countries at
least during Columbus' period.
St. Catherine of Genoa, whose work was done just about the beginning
of Columbus' Century, is a typical example of the organizer of charity
of this time. As a young widow she began to visit the patients in the
hospital, and finally came to spend all of her time there, except such
as was devoted to the visiting of the sick in their homes and the
bringing of them into the hospitals. Soon she organized a number of
others, or at least they gathered round her until a great work for
charity was being done. Many of the noblewomen of the time devoted
some hours at least every week to visiting the sick in the hospitals.
There is a touching story told of Frances, Duchess of Brittany, who
nursed through a severe illness her husband's successor on the ducal
throne, who had treated her with great injustice. She afterwards
retired to a Carmelite convent, where during an epidemic she nursed
the stricken nuns through its whole course, and at the end of it laid
down her own life. In the next century Evelyn, in his "Diary," tells
of his surprise on visiting the hospitals in Paris to see how many
noble persons, men and women, were waiting on them and "how decently
and Christianly the sick in Charite [one of the great hospitals] were
attended even to delicacy." This was only a continuation of the fine
traditions of the older time, surprising to Evelyn because they had
gone out entirely in Protestant England.
The period was particularly rich in social workers, especially those
who used Christianity as the basis by which to enable men to help
themselves. One of the greatest of these, whose influence so lives on
even in our own time that Cardinal Newman loved to speak of him as his
beloved Father Philip, was Philip Romolo Neri (1515-1595), better
known as St. Philip Neri, the Apostle of Rome. He proved a rather
brilliant scholar as a young man, but when a successful {182} business
career was opening up for him he gave it all up and in 1533 arrived in
Rome without any money, without having informed his father of the step
that he was taking and after having deliberately cut himself off from
the patronage of an uncle who had resolved to make him his heir. For a
while he tutored and wrote poetry and Latin and Italian, and then
studied philosophy at the Sapienza and theology in the school of the
Augustinians. When he was about thirty he became the close friend of
St. Ignatius Loyola, and many of the young men that gathered round
him, because of his attractive, amiable character, found a vocation
for the intellectual and spiritual life in the infant Society of
Jesus.
In 1548, together with his confessor, he founded the confraternity of
the Most Holy Trinity for the care of pilgrims and convalescents in
Rome. Its members met for communion once a month and there was
exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, a practice which was introduced
by Philip. He sometimes preached even as a layman, and in 1551, at the
command of his confessor, for nothing short of this would have
overcome his humility, he entered the priesthood. He devoted his
attention particularly to men and boys and succeeded in making them
close personal friends. In the midst of this work priests gathered
round him, and finally Gregory XIII recognized the little community as
the Congregation of the Oratory. Pope Gregory XIV, who had previously
been a great personal friend of Philip's, would have made him a
cardinal only for the saint's great reluctance.
His little band of oratorians, among whom the most conspicuous was
Baronius, the Church historian, did wonderful work in Rome and many
other houses of this congregation came into existence. Few men that
ever lived had so much influence over all those who came in contact
with him as St. Philip Neri, and it is this personal influence that
characterized the work of his congregation in the after-time. Newman
and Faber and many of the distinguished converts of the Tractarian
movement in England became members of the Oratory, and St. Philip's
work has come down to our generation through them with very wonderful
success. His career represents another example of the marvellous power
of the {183} men of this time to create things of all kinds which
influence all succeeding generations.
St. Philip Neri's contemporary and intimate friend, St. Ignatius
Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, is always thought of as a great
organizer in education, seldom as a social worker. There was no phase
of social need in Rome, however, to which he did not give his personal
attention in spite of the many calls that there were on his time. He
taught little children catechism and insisted that this should be a
special feature of the work of his order in spite of its devotion to
the higher education. He organized various institutions for the poor
and secured by his efforts the foundation of a home for fallen women
in Rome and himself personally conducted through the streets to it
some of those who were to enter. His example in this matter must be
taken as a type of what many thoughtful persons of this time were
ready to do in the accomplishment of what they saw as their social
duties.
One of the great social reformers of the time whose unfortunate death
has made him the subject of wide attention ever since was Savonarola,
the Dominican monk, whose fate has been a sad stumbling-block of
misunderstanding of the time. He used his great powers of oratory to
bring about a social reform. It was sadly needed. Contact with the old
pagan ideas through the new learning had made many of the people of
the time even more selfish than usual. In the midst of the luxury and
worldly interests of the time there had come a neglect of the old
fellow-feeling of kindness and of charity that had characterized the
Middle Ages. This affected mainly the so-called better classes. It was
this, above all, that Savonarola tried to reform. He succeeded in
stirring up the people wonderfully, and it is probable that no one has
ever succeeded in working such a revolution in the social feelings of
a whole city as Savonarola did.
As a consequence of his ardent appeals people began a great
reformation of city life by reforming themselves. The confessionals
were thronged with penitents, the audiences outgrew the capacity of
the largest church in Florence, that city of ample churches, and the
very streets that had listened to nothing but pagan poetry for years
resounded to the music {184} of hymns and psalms. A really important
step in reform, however, was the great change in the attitude of mind
of men towards others, and especially those needy or in suffering. Men
sold their goods and gave the proceeds to the poor. Women gathered
together their vanities of all kinds, burned them in the market place
and devoted themselves to the care of the ailing. Old feuds were made
up, and thoughts of revenge put aside, though they had been the
dearest traditions in families for generations. For some time there
was probably never a happier community than Florence. No one was in
want, selfishness was almost at an end and lawlessness quite unknown.
The conditions were too good to last among ordinary humanity.
Political bickering began and political factors of all kinds obtruded
themselves on the movement. The citizens formed themselves into a
Christian commonwealth, over which they wished Savonarola to rule.
After a time, intoxicated by the apparent success of the movement, not
a few hoped to raise themselves to power in the midst of the rather
quixotic political conditions that had developed, and almost needless
to say they were urged on by certain of the ruling princes of Italy,
who hoped themselves to benefit by conditions in Florence.
Long ago Horace said, "You may put away nature as with a fork, but she
will come back." The supernatural ruled for a time in Florence, but
the natural reasserted itself and then the trouble began. Savonarola
was its victim, but not before he had shown clearly what the evils of
the time were and pointed out the path along which they might be
reformed, though the sudden reformation of them could not be hoped
for.
Savonarola was a social, and not a religious, reformer. He has often
been proclaimed a pre-Reformation reformer, but there was no doctrine
of the old Church that Savonarola did not accept, and it was for
political and not theological reasons that he was put to death, though
ecclesiastics had so much to do with it. All the characteristic
doctrines of the Church--devotion to the Saints and to the Blessed
Virgin, the Blessed Sacrament, Transubstantiation--are dwelt on in his
writings, and he is even the author of a hymn to the Blessed Virgin
{185} and of a treatise on devotion to her. Nor was he at all carried
away with the idea of self-judgment and independence in religion. No
one teaches more emphatically than he the power of the Pope and the
necessity for obedience to Rome. Nothing stronger or more explicit in
this regard has ever been written than some passages that have been
found in his writings.
It is too bad that his great social influence for good was not allowed
to work itself out into important social reforms. Great churchmen of
the after-time have recognized the sad misfortune of his death, and
Pope Benedict XIV, whose authority in the matter of the canonization
of Saints and the honor to be paid them is the highest, made use of an
expression which shows in what lofty veneration Savonarola was held by
one of the greatest of the popes. As Cardinal Lambertini, Pope
Benedict said: "If God gives me the grace to get to Heaven, as soon as
I shall have consoled myself with the Beatific Vision my curiosity
will lead me to look for Savonarola." Half a century later a parallel
expression, which is almost more striking, was reported to have been
used by Pope Pius VII, who said: "In Heaven three serious questions
will be solved: The Immaculate Conception, the suppression of the
Society of Jesus and the death of Savonarola." [Footnote 20]
[Footnote 20: How soon this vindication of Savonarola began to be
felt in the minds of high ecclesiastics will perhaps be best
realized from the fact that when, some ten years after the friar's
death, Raphael was asked to decorate the stanze of the Vatican, he
introduced Savonarola beside St. Thomas Aquinas, among the great
doctors of the Church in the very first fresco that he painted. This
fresco was seen and studied carefully by the Pope and greatly
praised by him. Almost needless to say Raphael's action in the
matter would never have been permitted, only that the reaction in
favor of Savonarola had set in very strongly.]
As a matter of fact, all the sentiment of the great Catholic scholars
and historians of modern times has been intent on vindicating
Savonarola's character. It is not the Church but churchmen who
condemned him and not for religious but political reasons.
Unfortunately in English the general impression with regard to him is
derived from George Eliot's "Romola," and that distinguished English
novelist, in spite of her erudition, was least of all fitted by
temperament or {186} intellectual training and eminently unfitted
because of her religious ideas to write the life of Savonarola and his
relation to his time. No one saw the social abuses so well as he and
no one called attention to them so effectively. He recognized them as
abuses, however, and not in any sense as consequences of the religious
system. He would have been the last one in the world to have wished
for serious disturbance of the Church. He had for years held high
positions in the Dominican order and was in the most complete sympathy
with the religious orders and the hierarchy of his time.
One of the greatest of the social workers of this century is
undoubtedly Bartolome de Las Casas, who did so much to moderate the
abuses in the treatment of the Indians, which had unfortunately crept
in under the Spanish sovereignty in the early days. He was the son of
Francisco Casas, who had accompanied Columbus on his second voyage and
brought back an Indian boy, whom he left to his son as a servant.
Bartolome studied law at Salamanca, secured a high reputation as a
lawyer and then became the counsel to the Spanish governors of the
Antilles and later of the Island of Hispaniola. After some years of
successful legal practice Las Casas became a priest and devoted
himself to the alleviation of the condition of the Indians. In
becoming a priest his position as a reformer became assured. Strange
as that may seem to some who do not understand the period, he gained
almost complete freedom of speech and, having no solicitude for his
material needs, could devote all his time and energy untrammelled to
his chosen life work. He made mistakes, he was eminently unpractical,
but there is no doubt at all about his absolute devotion to the cause
of humanity and his untiring activity and zeal in the cause of proper
Christian treatment of the Indians. He aroused the attention of the
men of his time and, above all, of the sovereigns of Spain and the
most influential men and women of that country.
His crusade had much to do with the promulgation of the "New Laws" in
1542 and their amendments in 1543 and 1544. These did not abolish
serfdom, but they greatly limited it, so that it was even said that a
native enjoyed more privileges than a Creole. He refused the bishopric
of Cuzco in Peru {187} declaring that he would never accept any Church
dignity, and it was only after much urging that he consented to become
bishop of Chiapas in Southern Mexico. His powers of administration did
not prove as great as his humanitarian ideals and, while he talked
much of abuses, he was not able to correct them as well as many others
who did not set out to be so radical as he. He has written much and
his books have appeared in many editions. His was a great soul that
found a supreme purpose and devoted to it a long life of ninety years.
A less ardent advocate than he would almost surely have failed of
accomplishing the great reform that was needed. Like our own
Abolitionists, he was too radical in many of his views, and yet his
very enthusiasm carried others along into the execution of great good.
His writings have been a storehouse of information with regard to
conditions in the colonies and, while they have to be discounted from
the standpoint of his tendency to exaggeration of interest in the
Indian questions, that exaggeration is justified to a great extent by
the great humanitarian purpose that dictated it. Las Casas must
undoubtedly be considered one of the world's great philanthropists.
An important social influence, if the name of social reformer does not
quite suit him, was the Duke of Gandia, who is better known as St.
Francis Borgia. He was a great-grandson of Pope Alexander VI, and his
grandfather, Juan Borgia, who had acquired the hereditary Duchy of
Gandia in the kingdom of Valentia in Spain, was assassinated by an
unknown hand, possibly that of his brother, Caesar Borgia. On the
maternal side the Duke of Gandia was the great-grandson of Ferdinand
the Catholic. His grandfather had been the Archbishop of Saragossa. He
himself became a brilliant courtier at the Court of Charles V, and in
the absence of the Emperor was considered the head of the Imperial
household. He and his wife were the favorites of the Empress. After
the death of the Empress he was commissioned to convey her remains to
Granada and, having to identify them formally there before burial, was
shocked on the opening of the coffin at the change which a few days of
death had brought in the sovereign whom he had served so zealously. He
turned {188} to make his life mean something, not for passing honor
but for the good of others. In fulfilment of this purpose he joined
the Jesuits and eventually became the third General of the order. His
change of life attracted wide attention and did almost more than
anything else to lessen many selfish tendencies among the nobility of
the time due to the pagan spirit of the Renaissance. It was a social
reform that made the Borgian name as much of an inspiration for good
as it had been for ill.
Perhaps even more important for this period is what may be called the
negative side of its social history. Apparently a great many people
are quite convinced that the later Middle Ages and the Renaissance
were witnesses of many severe cruelties and torturing practices, some
of them legal, which reveal, if not an actual barbarity, a sad, almost
inhuman, lack of kindliness and fellow-feeling on the part of the men
and women of this time. Most people who have heard of cruelties and
torture are quite sure that in general these reached their climax of
bitterness in the later Middle Ages and that even the Renaissance time
was not free from them. In the more recent centuries, particularly the
seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth, men are supposed to be
climbing out of the slough of despond in this matter into which
humanity unfortunately had sunk during the mediaeval period. We rather
pride ourselves on this evolution of humanity, quite forgetting for
the moment how much greater than all the old-time barbarity is the
suffering incident to our industrial development. This is, however,
set down to inadvertence at most, while mediaeval and Renaissance
cruelty is thought of as deliberate.
There are not many impressions more false than this in history, and it
is entirely due to the ignorance of the date of a number of historical
events which are sometimes massed together as mediaeval or at least
not modern, modern history being supposed to begin as a rule with the
discovery of America. As a matter of fact, the refinements of torture
all came after Columbus' Century. The Virgin of Nuremberg, the iron
boots into which wedges were driven for torture purposes, the iron
gauntlets in which the hands of living {189} people were roasted and
many other of the hideous contrivances that rightly find a prominent
place in history were made in the later sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, and not in Columbus' time nor during the mediaeval period.
The worst refinements of legal torture nearly all were devised in the
course of the witchcraft delusion which swept over Europe in the later
sixteenth and during the seventeenth century. There was comparatively
little witch baiting and witch hunting and very few witches put to
death during the earlier centuries. Witchcraft was a post-Reformation
delusion.
The Encyclopedia Britannica (Ninth Edition), in its article on
torture, emphasizes particularly the fact that: "It is the boast of
the common law of England that it never recognized torture as legal.
Instances of torture as a means of obtaining evidence were invariably
ordered by the Crown or Council, or by some tribunal of extraordinary
authority such as the Star Chamber, not professing to be bound by the
rules of the common law." "The infliction of torture became more
common under the Tudor monarchs," this article continues. "Under Henry
VIII it appears to have been in frequent use." May I add that its
frequency is an incident of the end of his reign after the religious
difficulties began. "Only two cases are recorded under Edward VI and
eight under Mary. The reign of Elizabeth was its culminating point. In
the words of Hallam, 'the rack stood seldom idle in the tower for all
the latter part of Elizabeth's reign.' The varieties of torture used
at this period are fully described by Lingard, and consisted of the
rack, the scavenger's daughter, the iron gauntlets or bilboes, and the
cell called 'little ease.' The registers of the council during the
Tudor and early Stuart reigns are full of entries as to the use of
torture, both for state and for ordinary offences."
Under Elizabeth and the Stuarts, and even later, there were cases
fully recognized by the English common law which differed from torture
only in name. To quote the Encyclopedia Britannica again:
"The _peine forte et dure_ was a notable example of this. If a
prisoner stood mute of malice instead of pleading, he was {190}
condemned to the peine, that is, to be stretched upon his back and to
have iron laid upon him as much as he could bear, and more, and so to
continue, fed upon bad bread and stagnant water through alternate days
until he pleaded or died. It was abolished by George III, and George
IV enacted that a plea of 'not guilty' should be entered for a
prisoner so standing mute. A case of _peine_ occurred as lately as
1726. At times tying the thumbs with whipcords was used instead of the
_peine_. This was said to be a common practice at the Old Bailey up to
the last century. In trials for witchcraft the legal proceedings often
partook of the nature of the torture, as in the throwing of the
reputed witch into a pond to see whether she would sink or swim, in
drawing her blood, and in thrusting pins into the body to try to find
the insensible spot. Confessions, too, appear to have been often
extorted by actual torture, and torture of an unusual nature, as the
devil was supposed to protect his votaries from the effects of
ordinary torture."
The seventeenth century particularly witnessed the deaths of many
thousands of poor people who were thought to be witches. Persecutions
for witchcraft took place more particularly in the countries most
affected by the Reformation. Germany as well as England had many of
them. Even the crudest forms of torture were invented with almost
devilish ingenuity at this time. It was under the influence of this
delusional psychic contagion and the dread of possession by the devil
that the insane and sufferers from nervous diseases of all kinds came
to be treated more inhumanly than ever before. A climax of inhumanity
in their regard was reached in the eighteenth century, when manacles
and chains and dungeons were employed, until at last the exaggeration
of ill-treatment brought with it reaction and reform.
Humanitarianism shows a decline, marked and definite and progressive
from the end of the sixteenth until the end of the eighteenth century.
Interest in religion sank as in England until John Wesley came to put
a new spirit into it. The rights of men were less and less respected
and the poor were oppressed by those above them until the awful
conditions that developed in the _ancien regime_ came in France, and
{191} nearly similar conditions in other countries. The French
Revolution had to come. Men could stand no more. As Hilaire Belloc,
one of the best of the modern historians of the French Revolution,
says, "That movement was really an attempt to restore to men the
rights which they had enjoyed during the Middle Ages."
{192}